The Story Of Another Us
by Lindt Luirae
Summary: Kakashi and Sakura were at the brunt of the Fourth Shinobi World War, only to be thrust into the ruins of the Third. [KakaSaku Month, Week 4, Day 1]
1. Back and Forth

**Warning: Mentions of Anxiety attacks, nothing graphic so I hope it doesn't make anyone uncomfortable.**

 **Note: I've reread this piece so many times I literally can't tell if it's good or not anymore. Lemme know if it's repetitive, boring or anything...**

 **Beta'd by the lovely Kakashisgf.**

 **A/N: I went back and split this chapter in two. My beta and I agreed that the structure of my story would look better with smaller chapters than longer ones. That's good news for you because it means faster updates. I still think it'll be 25-30K in total.**

 **EDIT (19/3/2019): My beta and I are going through the story and fixing mistakes we've previously missed.**

* * *

 **I - Back and Forth**

It was within Kakashi's nature to appear apathetic and aloof-it was a coping mechanism, a shield. He'd been hurt, had lost and lost and lost and fought and died and he'd swear on his mother's grave that there wasn't a piece of him left that hadn't cracked and shattered and been rebuilt only to shatter again.

But they were shinobi, born and raised to wade in the gruesome and the ugly and remain intact to do it a hundred times over, a thousand times if need be. Until one day they laid down their lives in service-and they were expected to do it proudly, unfalteringly, because what was more important, more honourable, than dying for one's village and ideals?

He wanted to scoff. To tell them to stuff that shit where it belongs, but Kakashi, the son of the White Fang, the Copy Ninja, the best Jounin of Konohagakure, had known nothing but war since he was born, had been chasing his death since the day he'd learned to walk. He'd been conditioned to think only for Konoha, to fight for Konoha and to die for Konoha, the village that took everything away from him and expected him to give more.

When they'd driven his father to death, when they'd shunned him for the things he'd never done, when they'd let Naruto grow up eating scraps even when Minato-sensei had given his life to protect them-he'd thought he could never learn to love Konoha the way he ought to.

But, as he gazed down at the white knuckled grip on his hand, at the death and blood and ruins around him, heard the terror and the rage in the distance, saw as everyone, the young and the old fought to their last breath to protect-well, he now knew they didn't do it for Konoha, or for their village or for their ideals. They did it for what those represented. For home, for family, for the people they loved.

And Kakashi, for how much he'd lost, still had people to fight for. Someone very important-perhaps the most important-to fight for. For her, he would fight for their village like he loved it.

Sakura let out a tremulous breath. She was covered with gore and sweat and she smelled like adrenaline and smoke and fear, but her eyes never lost their fire of determination, never wavered in the face of death and pain. Kakashi thought she'd never looked more beautiful than in that second, when she turned to meet his eyes, hers a fierce, unyielding emerald like she was set to burn the whole world down to ashes, and he knew then that she'd die for him just like he'd die for her.

"Kakashi." She turned, twisted to face him even when the tension lining her body seemed strong enough to shatter her bones. There was a brief lull in the fight, a moment of much needed reprieve for his aching body and heaving lungs, a moment in which the world was suspended on edge, and everything was silent and heavy in preparation for the next storm. Sakura's touch on his face brought him back, anchored him-he knew it was dangerous how every part of him readily discarded all their surroundings until he was only and vividly aware of her and every tenacious breath her body drew in.

She drew him closer to her, her forehead pressing against his, and he wanted so badly to melt into her like so many times before, wished desperately he hadn't taken their moments for granted. She took another breath, measured and heavy, like she was drawing strength and conviction from the contact between them. "I'm going to do something crazy."

He searched her eyes for the meaning of that, wishing he could trust her but knowing that his fear of losing her would always overpower every rational thought that had ever crossed his mind. It made his heart sink, heavy and burning like coal in his lungs-crazy never led anywhere good, not in this world.

The diamond on her forehead unleashed, he could feel it slithering across her skin-across his skin, wrapping around him, too. And suddenly it was like he could breathe again, like every gulp he took in wasn't the one keeping him alive but the one anchoring him to earth. It filled him with a surge of power that seemed to seep down to his tired bones, and it was thrilling, intoxicating, like life being pushed back into his body.

Kakashi's heart began racing in earnest, and he rasped out, "Sakura, what are you doing?"

Multiple characters surfaced on her skin, vivid and glowing an eerie green, and if he thought he could breathe, he was wrong, he couldn't. Kakashi had been in many situations in his life when he'd been scared-terrified-but he had never acutely tasted fear on his tongue like he did now, when he wasn't sure if Sakura would live or die or what kind of crazy she was attempting.

"I'm going to get us out of here, you just hold on tight," she promised, a fervent, hoarse whisper murmured against his masked lips just as the world exploded in blinding light and he lost consciousness.

 **...**

A steady, beeping sound pulsed somewhere far away, like the rhythm of a heart. The more Kakashi focused on it, the more he became gradually aware of other sounds. The shuffling of papers somewhere far away, the soft breathing of someone nearby, the sting of a needle in his arm.

He was lying on something soft and clinical, the bland smell of hospital deep in his nose. Kakashi shifted uneasily, feeling returning to his limbs. A migraine pulsed readily behind his shut eyelids, throbbing away like there was no tomorrow. He ached like he'd been launched from the peak of a mountain face-first into the dirt and left there for a few hours.

A groan threatened to escape his lips as he became acutely aware of the crippling tension residing in his bones and he opened his eyes to be met by bright white. Holy mother of- he winced at the light, wondering where the heck he was.

It was entirely possible that he'd been captured by an enemy and was now an experiment of some mad scientist-possibly Orochimaru himself-and that was not a comforting thought at all. Except, as Kakashi scanned his surroundings, he discovered he was in Konoha's Grand Hospital. Which should be impossible seeing as it was the first place to go down, their enemy trying to cut off their medical support.

"Kakashi," murmured a quiet feminine voice from beside him. He'd know that voice anywhere-his head snapped in its direction and he instantly lost all the air in his lungs.

Her bright, bubblegum hair was piled in a messy bun atop her head with a few stray strands framing her face, her eyes a wide, brilliant shade of emerald. She had a small graceful nose and delicate, plumped lips. She also didn't look a day over seventeen.

"S-Sakura?" he croaked in a broken whisper, his throat painfully raw. He resisted the impulse to cough, fearing that the pain would be unbearable.

She shushed him, leaning closer, her lean fingers brushing gently through his hair. She moved damp silver strands off his forehead, her thumb briefly tracing his brow. "We made it."

At his confused look, she elaborated, a small smile twitching her lips. "We're ... back in time ... but in a different reality I suppose, seeing as you're the same age as me."

Kakashi's eyes widened in alarm, his brain cataloguing every sensation in his body to spot the anomaly. He forced his arms up despite the pain, bringing them closer to his face. They were shorter, very pale and lacking some of the scars he possessed. His palms weren't as calloused, his fingers leaner.

Sakura's fingers wrapped around one of his wrists and gently lowered it back onto the mattress. "I know it's crazy. And I'll tell you more about it later ... but there's something else you need to know first ..."

Kakashi, still reeling from what she'd told him, could only hold his breath and stare at her.

"Your father is alive."

 **...**

It was an otherworldly experience when he walked the streets of Konoha again. The air was light and fresh, lacking the scent of smoke and charred wood. Laughter and chatter replaced the sounds of agony and fear. People bustled about like overly enthusiastic swarms of bees getting to work, like tomorrow was for granted and there was no rush, no imminent death.

He had escaped the hospital even when he knew it'd get him in trouble with Sakura. But he needed some time-proof-to accept that this was real. A lot of people who had been dead for a long, long time were alive in this world.

Minato sensei, his teammates … his father.

An irrational, impulsive part of him he thought he'd long since buried wanted to tear the village down searching for them. And another part of him was, well, terrified, but that was a given. Mostly, he was numb with disbelief, his limbs heavy with exhaustion.

He let his legs carry him somewhere familiar because as beautiful and unbelievable as this bright reality was, it was too much for his senses. He'd been living and breathing war for years now; he'd nearly forgotten what it was like to walk without the threat of death at every corner.

When Sakura found him in the Yondaime's ear, she didn't try to kill him like she usually might when she'd hunt him down after he'd escaped the hospital. Instead, she settled in the space next to him, her head pillowing comfortably against his shoulder. Her head of pink tickled his chin but he buried his face in it anyway, inhaling her familiar scent. She smelled wonderfully of water, spring and sunshine, comforting and deeply ingrained in his memory. It made the tension leave his shoulders instantly.

His arm moved of its own accord, wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her closer to his chest where she proceeded to bury her face in his neck and inhale him just as deeply.

"How?" he finally asked, when he was sure his voice wouldn't crack under the weight of his emotions.

"Forbidden scroll. Serum," she responded in short. "Something only medics of my caliber can hope to concoct ... I wasn't counting on it though until Naruto..."

She seemed unable to finish that sentence, her breath hitching quietly. His hold on her tightened, as if he could protect her from her pain through physical contact.

"Anyway," she cleared her throat, voice still thick, "I'm … on a team. With the Naruto and Sasuke of this world and ... Hatake-sensei."

Kakashi was confused for the whole of three seconds before he startled so profoundly, his knee jerked up and Sakura's warm palm dropped on it and gently pressed it down, "It seems in whichever world I am, I'm meant to have a Hatake teach me."

"... Have you met him?" he rasped, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Yes," Sakura replied faintly, and he felt the ghost of her smile against his skin "He looks so much like you it's kinda scary. But he's ... more laid-back. Slightly less strict. Has a better fashion sense too."

The last one held a teasing lilt, and Kakashi's throat constricted. He pressed his face against her hair and took another trembling breath. "Thank you," he murmured with thick emotion, wrapping his other arm around her in a tight embrace.

Her smile widened, like the flutter of a butterfly over his chin as she tilted her head back and pressed a small kiss there, her palm cupping his cheek. "There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for you, Kakashi."

 **...**

Kakashi chewed slowly, deliberately, his eyes fixed on his plate. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever felt so tense, so volatile. He'd quickly understood that joint lunches between his team and Sakumo's team were a common, normal occurrence.

It was hard, the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, to open the front door of their traditional house once again and walk in to be greeted by his dad. Sakumo, who had the kindest smile and the warmest aura. Sakumo, who'd once been the centre of his life, who'd been the first trainwreck of many to follow that had shaped Kakashi into the broken, desperate man he was today.

It was like seeing a ghost except when he blinked, Sakumo didn't disappear, unlike when he was six, returning home from a mission and for a split second he'd see the image of his father bathed in the sunbeams streaming through the window, smiling at him. Sakumo would then open his mouth, and Kakashi could swear he'd almost hear the words, and his eyes would burn from the strain, but when he inevitably blinked, Sakumo was gone, and the sunlight didn't seem very warm and comforting anymore.

Everytime, Kakashi would be left with the word 'why' burning in his throat like lava, unanswered and plaguing him. Had he not been enough? Had Sakumo not cared enough about him to stay?

Kakashi didn't want the answers to those questions anymore, but of late, every time he blinked and his dad didn't disappear, the broken child buried in the depths of him would fight to claw its way out, desperate to know. And Kakashi would clamp his mouth shut and breathe because this Sakumo didn't know.

He inhaled and exhaled, slow and measured. Anxiety sat in his chest like cement, and he could barely breathe around each bite he took to maintain the pretense of normalcy. He could feel Sakura's eyes on him, could almost sense her worry from across the table, and he wished he'd had the foresight to sit next to her.

He saw less of her these days than he was comfortable with, as they no longer lived together. In another world, she wrapped around him every night like his favourite blanket, keeping the nightmares away. And now, with the glaring absence of her warmth by his side, he'd never felt more alone. It was a very irrational, nonsensical experience that despite getting back everything he'd lost, everything he'd wished for, it was Sakura who filled his thoughts.

And all of this-the chatter, the happiness, the sickeningly false sense of peace that shrouded his house and its occupants-it was grating on his weary nerves. It felt as if it would all burst into stardust at the gentlest of touches, that this illusion might collapse and invert on itself any second.

"Oi, Ka-ka-shii," Obito growled, startling Kakashi out of his thoughts. He looked up to find the Uchiha scowling at him, clearly irritated. Naruto by his side was struggling to swallow down his laughter. Seeing those two personalities side by side was disorienting. "I asked if you're ready to get your ass kicked this time."

Kakashi stared at him, uncomprehending. "I'm … sorry?"

"Oh my god Obito, you broke him," Sasuke snorted, dark eyes holding a hint of humour and lacking all the malice typically associated with his character.

"In training, baka," Obito sneered, pointing a challenging finger at him. "I'm kicking your ass this time."

Feeling oddly out of place, Kakashi shrugged uncomfortably and tried to recall how he might've responded to such taunt at this age. "Good luck."

It seemed to be the correct response, for Obito jumped out of his seat and was proclaiming to the world that he'd wipe training ground three with Kakashi's face, everything be damned.

Kakashi had never been particularly claustrophobic, but the atmosphere of the room was leaning on too heavy for him to handle much longer, and he was sure if any of them paused to pay attention, they'd notice he was barely able to breathe under the weight in his chest.

"Excuse me," he choked out, when he was all but gulping at air through his mask, the legs of his chair scraping audibly across the ground.

He was out of the door before anyone could ask what was wrong with him, his feet crossing the backyard rapidly until he arrived at a familiar lake. He stopped to rip his mask off and suck in lungfuls with the desperation of a man who had been drowning and had finally broken through the surface.

Kakashi collapsed at the edge of the dock, drawing one knee to his chest and pressed his forehead against it as he focused on regulating his breathing.

Not long after, he heard approaching footsteps accompanied by a chakra that was cool and fluid like the rivers in spring. Sakura lowered herself in the space beside him, eyes ahead as she, too, drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "Are you okay?"

When he didn't answer, she tilted her head in his direction so that her cheek rested on her knee. "Is it your anxiety again?"

Kakashi managed a nod, chest too tight for much else.

Sakura shuffled closer to him, a green aura engulfing her palm. She gently pressed it to his back, forcing it bone deep. He felt his body relax at the careful, soothing ministrations of her chakra, and his heartbeat slowed down soon after so that he could breathe again.

He wanted so badly to lean into her, but he was afraid someone would see or appear just in time to witness that what he felt for this woman ran so deep, made up such a significant part of his person and purpose, that it couldn't be concealed. And in this reality, those feelings, the connection between them, it was never meant to be there.

"There," she said quietly when she was done, her hand squeezing his shoulder before it withdrew to her side, "all good now."

They sat in silence, watching the calm lake that reflected the setting sun in the horizon, taking on a beautiful, deep orange hue. It was peaceful, warm like the presence next to him, and Kakashi allowed himself to fully relax for the first time in a week. "I've missed you."

The confession was murmured quietly, the cool breeze carrying it to her. Sakura smiled, secret and shy, and it was so endearing on her younger face. "Yeah? I've missed you too."

They shared a brief smile, and Kakashi was about to lean in and kiss her, witnesses be damned, when a voice called for them. Kakashi let out a soft curse and stood abruptly, tugging his mask back in place before he turned to face Naruto. "I'm coming," he groused, hoping Naruto didn't sense what had been about to transpire in the atmosphere.

"What happened back there?" Naruto frowned, thumb pointing in the direction of the house as Kakashi jogged closer to him, completely oblivious to the fact that he'd nearly caught Kakashi and Sakura in a liplock.

"Nothing," Kakashi insisted, carrying on past Naruto without looking back at Sakura in fear the blond would read the longing Kakashi felt in his gaze. "Let's go kick Obito's ass."

 **...**

Kakashi could feel Sakumo's eyes on him, no matter how much the older Hatake tried to be discreet. Ever attuned to his surroundings, Kakashi could sense every shift and ripple of his father's, could hear every whisper that drifted through the wind.

Whatever warranted that scutinity … well, perhaps his dad was just worried and Kakashi needn't overthink the implications of each glance. After all, he'd had a panic attack during lunch, which not only was out of character for him, but also bizarre. To an outsider, to any person oblivious to the fact that he was a time traveller, it would appear as if there were no trigger, nothing to set him off that way.

"Alright, team." Sakumo clapped his hands lightly, but the sound echoed anyway. "With Minato out on a mission, we'll take it easy and focus on hand-to-hand combat. Naruto, you'll be sparring with Obito; Sasuke, you're with Rin. That leaves you two."

Kakashi blinked and made sure his face remained impassive. Why would his dad pair him with Sakura?

Sasuke made a disgruntled sound, displeased to have gotten paired with Rin. Kakashi took some pleasure watching her get so offended as to land a solid hit on Sasuke's face and send him rolling backward like a ragdoll.

Sakura snorted from beside him, and he echoed the sound, albeit quieter and more reservedly. "Shall we?"

Kakashi sighed and then took in a steadying breath. "Yeah." And then, to get himself pumped up for the upcoming spar and hoping this would drag him out of his slump, he smirked with challenge. "Let's see if you've grown rusty in my absence."

As expected, Sakura's eyebrows quirked, unperturbed by his jab, and cracked her knuckles ominously. "Bring it on, Hatake."

She came at him with a speed that almost matched his famed one, but not quite. No one ever beat Kakashi when it came to speed. The silver-haired ninja nimbly side-stepped the attack and knocked her elbow aside, veering her off track, his hand already coming down to hit the back of her neck in a blow that would end the match.

The hit never connected, of course. Sakura ducked and rolled onto the ground, out of his reach, quickly changing directions and knocking his feet from beneath him.

Instead of crashing into the ground, Kakashi back-flipped and landed neatly on his feet again.

They traded blows, lethal in their accuracy but toned down in strength to avoid fatal injuries. They danced and twirled around each other in a flurry of kicks and ridiculous acrobatic moves that had the both of them snorting in amusement. It was familiar and welcome and so in tune, twisting and turning around each other like magnets.

It was obvious to anyone with an eye for detail that these were two bodies accustomed and attuned to each other on a very primal level. They moved like water, like waves, crashing and twisting and bending and wrapping around each other in a way that spoke of years of practice, of battles fought and won back to back, of intimate knowledge of each other's strengths and weaknesses, and it took Sakumo's breath away to watch them fight like their bodies were made of the same matter, like their souls were a dividend of one, like neither of them knew how to breathe without the other.

Each move was deliberate, calculated, each glance meaningful, each smile loaded with secrets, and for once he felt like an outsider, like he was violating something sacred and private.

Feeling discombobulated with the strange emotion, Sakumo looked away. Because Kakashi moved around Sakura like she held his sun, earth and moon, and he craved nothing but to be crushed beneath it all.

 **...**

What ended the match was Kakashi catching Sakura's ankle in his palm (which sent a spike of pain up his arm) and flipping her over, pinning her to the ground. They proceeded then to flip each other over and over again, bodies twisting together in an intimate tug and drag, legs tangling. They were both dirty now, sweaty and out of breath, and there was sand lodged in very uncomfortable places, alongside a few bleeding gashes littering their arms.

Finally, they both had each other in a choke hold, Sakura beneath him, pinned to the ground by his body, her every curve pressed deliciously against his, her eyes fierce and wild with something his body recognised on a very primal level, and he was drunk on the feeling of her, on the adrenalin of battle, on the sight of her lips inches away.

"Do you concede?" they demanded at the same time, which caused the both of them to smile. Her pretty pink lips twitching up at the corners, her flushed cheeks complementing the sight.

"Tie?" Sakura suggested, peering into his dark, dark eyes, and he wondered if she could read the desperation he felt for her in that moment.

"Tie," he agreed, and reluctantly they released their hold on each other and Kakashi helped her back onto her feet.

He winced as another quiver of pain raced up his arm, and Sakura grinned triumphantly, her palm already glowing green as she pressed it to his arm. The pain immediately dulled and then disappeared.

"So ... have you grown rusty or have I grown stronger?" she hummed, working methodically on his injuries, surface wounds and light gashes.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head rather sheepishly. He'd noticed that he'd lost some of his killer agility, although he was sure no outsider would notice. "No, I've just grown younger."

Sakura huffed out a laugh. "Evidently."

"Bad look?" he bit the corner of his lip, trying to resist the helpless smile that wanted to bloom on his face and feeling thankful his dad wasn't glancing his way right now.

"Nope," Sakura immediately disagreed. "Equally charming." To which Kakashi's smile widened, his eyes creasing in a familiar motion.

"Makes me wonder though," Sakura hummed as the green glow of her hands faded and she rose on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, voice deceptively light, "if what's under your clothes changed too."

A spike of want rippled through him, fierce and all consuming, as she backed away and they locked eyes again, hers mischievous, his dark. And he ached for her, truly, in every way, beyond the cravings of his body, he ached for her.

Kakashi couldn't resist learning in to breathe in her ear in a heated whisper, "Why don't you find out?"

"Sakumo-sensei, Kakashi and Sakura-chan are being gross!" Obito's voice boomed out of nowhere, and the couple were forcefully reminded that they weren't alone. They quickly parted, putting some distance between them and turned to face a smug-looking Obito, who was covered in mud from head to toe.

Next to him, Naruto was in similar condition.

They both were staring at him and Sakura, and Kakashi felt his face heat up and was thankful for his ever present mask. He always knew it was dangerous how readily and easily he lost himself to Sakura. They were in the middle of a training session; he should've never let his guard down.

"Says the guy covered in mud," Sakura sneered in reply, although there wasn't any real heat behind the words. Obito's smile turned sheepish, and he scratched at the back of his head as awkward chuckles tumbled from his mouth.

Sakumo dropped from a nearby tree, eyes holding a hint of curiosity, "Tie?"

Sakura shrugged, "Seems like it."

Kakashi's dad looked somewhat intrigued, although he tried to conceal it. Something unknown in his dark eyes made Kakashi unfathomably uncomfortable. "Well, match is over, you are free to do as you please."

Sakura turned to look at Kakashi and said by way of question, "Yakiniku? I'm hungry."

It was a poor getaway tactic really, the subtleties of her body language spoke of the same burning need he felt in his bones, and he knew there would be no eating anytime soon, that her hunger was for him.

"Lead the way," he responded, and Obito's jaw dropped open.


	2. Mirage

**II - Mirage**

Kakashi was never quite so overcome with emotion before. It was a strange, yet empowering sensation, and he let it lead him as he grabbed Sakura's face and kissed her long and deep, savouring the taste of her lips on his tongue and the feeling of her breath on his skin, the warmth of her at his fingertips.

Gods, it had been so long. His fingers tangled in her hair, tugging her head so far back so that their kiss was so deep he could feel it in his toes.

His heart raced, an old sensation, an odd one to have considering he knew Sakura's lips better than he knew his own—considering just how much of her he had memorised, down to the most intimate parts of her soul. But his heart continued to bang briskly in his chest, his stomach tight with butterflies, and he came to the startling realisation that while his mind still knew every part of Sakura, this body did not, and it was reacting to every sensation like it was the first time all over again.

They parted with a gasp for air, and his mouth strayed to taste the sweat on her neck, to explore the dip of her collarbones, sucking on her pulse as he made his way up to the sensitive spot behind her ear, and Sakura was trembling, breath short and eyes squeezed shut and gods he wanted her.

They stumbled their way to the bathroom. They were still dirty; he wanted a shower almost as badly as he wanted her, but not quite.

His fingers worked on her clothes, pulling all the unnecessary garments away, her hands undressing him as well. Her back collided with the tiles, and she moaned into his mouth as he reached to squeeze her ass and lift her off the ground, pressing them together so that she felt him hot and hard against her, all over her.

She reached between then, fumbling with his trousers, her slim fingers slipping beneath the garment and fisting at the base of his cock. She stroked him, slow and savouring, her touch tantalizing and all too much at once, and Kakashi cursed as his body trembled and his loins burned hot with arousal and the need for release.

"Sakura," he grunted in warning, his face burying in her neck, and she moaned and sighed at the feeling of him in her hand, murmured to him about how much she'd missed him, about how badly she wanted him, all of him. "I'm going to come."

Her breathing was as ragged as his even though he'd made no move to touch her yet, and her face was flushed red, her chest heaving visibly. She leaned closer, lips ghosting over his ear, "Please…" she breathed, voice hitching with a desperate note, "Please … come for me …"

Kakahi growled as her words shattered his hold on himself and he spilled all over her fist and stomach. Her fingers continued stroking him until he was spent, and then she brought them to her mouth to suck the sticky liquid right off them, and he didn't think he could feel need still after having just come but he was wrong. Kakashi captured her mouth in a long, searing kiss until she was all but squirming in his arms, her hips grinding on his abdomen with barely controllable need, and he couldn't deny her any longer, couldn't resist reaching into her panties and stroking her until she was sobbing, feeling her wetness seeping through the material, and then engulfing his fingers like a vice.

His fingers sank into her again and again, the sounds of them plunging into her obscene and loud and so fucking arousing, especially when her hips starting grinding back against him, her pretty moans singing in his ears like music, desperate and hitching and stuttering over his name as he brought her to her release.

"Ngh—ahh!" Her head fell back against the tiles, her eyes closing in bliss, and she shuddered long and hard around him, her walls squeezing him impossibly tight as she released around his fingers, and he was hard again, aching even, as he watched her crumble in his hold.

"Gods you're so fucking sexy," he whispered, nipping on her chin, on her jawline, on her lower lip. "I've missed you so much." He engulfed her mouth in another kiss.

She made a strangled sound at the back of her throat as he rubbed them together, his cock teasing between her folds, the head nudging her sensitive clit. He felt her grow wetter, sensed the way her spine shivered and her breath quivered, her nails digging in his shoulders. "Ka—kakashi—ngh—please!"

She shuddered again, a full body shudder, and she let her feet drop back to the ground, pushing him into the bath, eyes burning for him in a way he thought might set him aflame.

She pushed him down, rough and gentle all at once in a way that was only her, then crouched atop him so that they were pressed together again, intimate and heated, and she was moaning again, a needy sound as she ground the drenched folds of her pussy up and down his hard cock, and he was throbbing, aching so badly for her he couldn't resist much longer ... he needed more, needed her around him, need her to come around his cock.

He gripped her hips and she pushed him inside her and they both sighed and moaned and grunted, and his balls tightened as her back arched and she cried out at the feeling of him hitting the end of her.

She reached between them, fingers finding her clit, and rubbed as she grinded against him, sighing and moaning in pleasure at the way he filled her, and the sight was so arousing, so sexy, that he could only kiss her and whisper to her in a dirty imitation of his voice for her to use him, to use his body and his cock to pleasure herself, to come around him as many times as she wanted, to extract her pleasure from him and push him down with her.

And although it drove him crazy, he sat still, gripping tightly onto her as she moved at her own pace, rising and falling on his length as her finger circled over her bundle of nerves, sighing in bliss.

"Touch me," she begged, all but sobbed, as she grabbed his hand and pressed his fingers to her aching clit, made him rub her slowly, teasing herself with his digits, and then faster and harder as she got more desperate, all while her walls shuddered around him, squeezing him so tightly he was gasping for air.

As he continued to rub her the way she liked, stroking her fast, she rode him harder, whimpering and moaning as her hips moved erratically, frantically, and he couldn't help it, he wanted her to reach her pinnacle, to fall apart beneath his touch. He gripped her ass and thrust up into her.

Sakura cried out, her head falling back as he began to rapidly fuck up into her welcoming body, and she only wound tighter, started begging as he brought her closer to her orgasm.

And then she screamed and her walls clamped down around him so tightly he hissed and cursed as the tension coiled at the bottom of his spine released and he was pumping her full of his come, all while she clawed at his chest and tugged at his hair.

They both panted raggedly as he slipped out of her, and she buried her face in his throat, laughing softly. "We need to work on your stamina," she wheezed, to which Kakashi pinched her ass.

"Shut up," he grouched without any heat, not really offended as he knew she was teasing him.

"Think we should shower now?" she mumbled, nuzzling into him.

"Yes, please."

 **...**

When Kakashi and Sakura met their team again, they were eating. They'd decided earlier after they'd showered to go out for lunch to keep up their hastily formed gateaway.

It seemed Kakashi had been right to suggest they actually have lunch at Yakiniku. Just in case.

Sakumo's distinctive silver hair and large build came into view first, trailed by a whole crowd of rowdy teenagers. Obito and Naruto were already in the process of brewing up a scene, and Kakashi didn't need to be an integrated part of this reality to get the sense that this was the normal, everyday dynamic between those two.

Rin and Sasuke trailed behind them, the former still glaring at the latter, although it didn't contain half the bite Sasuke's usual glares contained; Rin was never quite capable of malice. But Sasuke had clearly offended her, understandably so.

Sakura glanced up in their direction once she'd noticed Kakashi's attention had drifted away from her. A small smile nudged her lips. "I suppose you were right. They did follow us eventually."

"I'm always right," Kakashi responded with a hint of his occasional arrogance, to which Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Well, they're coming our way," Sakura pointed out, chopsticks swirling her noodles. "You better behave yourself."

Kakashi arched a delicate eyebrow, unconsciously leaning closer to her. "Behave myself? What makes you think I won't?"

Sakura glanced pointedly at his hand, which had previously been resting on her knee. It was an innocent enough move, a familiar one, but although Konoha was home, this place wasn't particularly familiar and leaving clues all over that they were together wouldn't be wise, seeing as they had no idea what the relationship between the Kakashi and Sakura of this time was really like.

Sakumo was within earshot by then and Sakura dropped the subject, immediately broaching another one. "Your dodging has gotten sloppier, we need to work on that."

Instead of getting offended, Kakashi played along, countering her statement with: "Oh? Rich coming from you after that pathetic slip of foot. When I was able to flip you earlier, Sakura? If I were an enemy, you'd be dead."

"Pfft," Sakura snorted, seeing Sakumo's ears perk up as he got closer. "Did you not try to stop my kick with your hand? If you were an enemy you'd be missing an arm right now, Kakashi."

"Ah," he aquiesced. "But even before that—"

"—My my, aren't you kiddos getting along?" Sakumo's light voice pierced through their conversation, effectively halting the pseudo argument.

"Hatake-sensei," Sakura responded lightly, scooting over. "Kakashi and I were just going over the details of our earlier fight, a great way to pinpoint mistakes."

Obito scoffed from behind Sakura, but Sakumo only reached to pat Sakura's head of pink teresses. "That's quiet wise, Sakura-chan. And what else have you and Kakashi been up to in our absence?"

The question was posed innocently enough, seemed harmless enough, but Kakashi was suddenly distinctly uncomfortable with the scrutiny he was being afforded.

Sakura shrugged and predictably gave a none-answer. "Oh ya know, just talking about this and that. You know, Kakashi can be quite fun, even kind, when he loosens up. Earlier he helped an old lady cross a road."

Sakumo's eyebrows shot up, and Obito's face turned several layers of disbelieving. He sneered, "Kakashi? Fun? Kind? Never thought I'd hear those two words used in conjunction with Kakashi."

The rosette shrugged, motioning for the rest of her team to take a seat on the same table. "What do ya know, people change. Perhaps all Kakashi needs is an incentive."

"You know, Kakashi is here," the man in question said drily, kicking her shin under the table.

Sakura muffled a laugh behind her palm and nudged him. "Don't you be so butt-hurt; it doesn't suit you."

The conversation came to another halt when they noticed their teams staring at them. Sakura cleared her throat. "Anyway. I was just telling Kakashi I'm thinking of trying out for Jounin. Can't have him outdo me."

Sakumo-sensei shrugged. "It's about time you did, Sakura. You've always had the potential."

She smiled at him, but not the more beaming smile she might've given Kakashi had he been the one to say the words, and Kakashi felt the little niggling, irritating jealousy at the back of his mind finally settle. It was silly that he would be bothered by Sakura finding another Hatake for a teacher and perferring him.

Perhaps this body's hormones were affecting him. He had to intervene anyway. "I told her the same."

Obito made another disbelieving face but Kakashi ignored him. "Sakura's really strong; she doesn't give herself much credit."

Sakura's cheeks were beginning to pink in reaction to his words, and she nudged him. "When'd you get all sentimental?" she accused, green eyes glaring at him through her blush.

Kakashi shrugged. His food was growing cold but he had yet to find a window of opportunity to sneak in a bite without people seeing his face. "Stating facts isn't being sentimental."

"Wow, can you two stop flirting already?" Obito bellowed, pointing an accusing finger at them, and both Sakura and Kakashi momentarily froze.

Kakashi recovered first. "Is this what you call flirting?" he asked evenly, adding, "Explains why you're single."

"Oi, you're single too, baka!" Obito growled, offended.

Kakashi resisted the urge to frown. That was right… he wasn't openly with Sakura. Rin was staring at him, but it was different than the occasional looks of admirations she used to send him, like she knew he was hiding something and Kakashi internally cursed. It was so unlike him to make a slip, to leave clues for others to pick at. Had he clued them in? Was he not as subtle as he thought himself to be?

A familiar, stifling, uncomfortable feeling was beginning to squeeze the muscle within his ribs, and Kakashi wasn't thrilled to sit through it again and make another unwanted scene. And so, he excused himself. "Anyway, I'm full. I'm gonna head home."

He shared a brief glance with Sakura, squeezing her arm under the table in goodbye and feeling regretful to part with her so soon. He only just remembered to turn and nod at his dad as he uttered his next words, "See you at home."

And then he was gone, slip unnoticed.

 **...**

Sakura was glowing that day.

It wasn't difficult to see it-it was the same look she had had going on in the restaurant when they'd had Yakiniku.

It was the widely acclaimed, deeply satisfied I-just-had-sex look females got sometimes.

Perhaps Sakumo was overthinking, seeing things that weren't there. Sakura was a seventeen-year-old, she'd been on his team for almost six years, he thought he knew her fairly well.

But ever since a few weeks ago she'd become impossible to read. It was entirely plausible that she was in fact, sexually active, but he wasn't about to pry into her privacy no matter how much he counted her as a child of his own.

The issue was, this whole thing was tied too closely to Kakashi somehow. He could feel it.

There was something going on there, between the two of them. He saw it in their shared glaces that spoke volumes, in their secretive smiles, in the way they moved around each other.

He would never oppose a relationship between those two if there was one; he was just disgruntled not to have noticed anything amiss until very recently.

Whatever was brewing between Kakashi and Sakura, it was years old, and he'd only taken notice of it now.

He entertained the idea of confronting Kakashi. Would his son be honest with him? Or would he deflect? Worse, would he become angry and defensive?

Sakumo sighed agitatedly.

There was another issue he didn't want to worry about. Rin.

He knew of Rin's unrequited feelings for his son … how would this affect her? Would her friendship with Sakura survive something like that?

Why had Kakashi not said anything about liking Sakura that way? He didn't typically hide things from Sakumo, so why start now?

Said boy walked into the kitchen that second to rummage idly through the fridge.

"Yo," Kakashi said absently, and after a few moments of searching pulled out a few items.

Sakumo watched as Kakashi then grabbed a pan, some oil and turned on the stove. It was a little jarring to watch his son move around the kitchen preparing food without being prompted to—even stranger that he moved with the ease of someone who'd had to get by on their own for their whole life.

Just what was up with his son? What was he missing?

As if feeling the weight of Sakumo's gaze on him, Kakashi arched a brow. "What?"

Sakumo's lips pursed. "Can I ask you something?"

Kakashi seemed a little alarmed at the odd request. "Um, sure. What's up?"

He hadn't anticipated an easy, albeit slightly hesitant acquiescence. He'd almost expected Kakashi to sidestep the question, or to manipulate the subject elsewhere, or even offer a sarcastic response.

Sakumo took a quick breath before blurting out. "Are you seeing Sakura?"

Kakashi blinked. Once, twice. "I'm sorry?"

Letting out a frustrated breath and knowing his son's tactics of evading and giving none-answers unless the questions were specific, Sakumo clarified. "Are you courting my student, Kakashi?"

"Are you angry?" Kakashi responded instead, turning back to the sizzling pan's contents.

Taken aback by his son's random guess, Sakumo scrambled to remedy the situation. "Angry? Of course not. Why would I be angry? So you're seeing Sakura?"

Kakashi sighed, leaning his hip against the counter and crossing his arms like he'd predicted this conversation long ago and had been gearing up for it all along. For some reason, and all of a sudden, he looked much older than his seventeen years, like a weary war veteran. "Yes. For a while now."

"Why did you not say anything?" Sakumo tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, but he was sure some of it seeped through either way. Perhaps he was being unfair to Kakashi; after all, any teenager might feel compelled to keep some secrets ... although Kakashi didn't really make a habit of hiding things from Sakumo, so it was a little hard to accept.

"I … didn't know quite how to tell you. Or anyone really. It just sort of happened. And Sakura didn't seem particularly compelled to tell anyone. I didn't want to be the one to say something." Although his son seemed tense for some reason, Sakumo knew he wasn't lying. Sakumo was perhaps the only person on this earth that would be able to catch Kakashi if he lied.

It was Sakumo's turn to sigh. He trusted Kakashi—he was his son after all—but he cared for Sakura far too much not to question him more thoroughly. "Are you serious about her?"

Kakashi blinked again, as if finding the query to be a strange, unexpected notion. "You think I would play with her feelings?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, Kakashi," Sakumo chided, some anger colouring his voice. "That wasn't what I asked."

Realising that whatever tactic he was using against Sakumo wasn't working, Kakashi's shoulders deflated. He looked so helpless to do anything but endure the interrogation that Sakumo almost took pity on him. But not quite. He needed to satiate his curiosity first.

Kakashi had turned back to the stove, breaking eye contact and reaching to stir the contents in the pan. And then he said something that had Sakumo's jaw drop open. "I love her."

His eyes remained staring at the pan, the reflexive way in which he interacted with it while his gaze remained blank showing that he was lost in thought, perhaps weighing the implications of what he'd just confessed.

Sakumo could only stare, floored. "What."

Kakashi's mouth twitched at the corner in a little, humorous smile, although he couldn't quite tell if the humour was genuine or not. "What? Too far-fetched? I'm being honest."

"But … when? Are you sure it's love, maybe—" As Sakumo began to ramble options, Kakashi cut him off, voice soft.

"Maybe ... what?" Kakashi turned to raise a cynical eyebrow at him. "Maybe it's infatuation? I thought so too, at first. But here I still am. Maybe it's just desire? I thought that too, for a while, but I couldn't stop missing her, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that it was just a phase."

Sakumo tried to make his brain process what he was being told. "And you thought it's love?"

Kakashi hummed, looking away again. A small blush dusted his cheeks. "Listen, I know what you think, what everyone else thinks—would think—but I've had a long time to come to term with my feelings, and I've accepted them for what they are. They're here to stay."

It was almost touching, the way his son formed those words like they tasted strange on his tongue but he was determined to say them anyway. "Why keep it a secret?"

"Because I just can't, Dad. I can't. What will everyone think? I'm not an idiot; I know Naruto's in love with Sakura," Kakashi said, and then added as an afterthought. "And I know Rin likes me. I know that everyone thinks I'm a heartless asshole, too far up my own ass. I know. And what I have with Sakura? That's mine. I don't ever want anyone to take that away from me."

For a moment, it was like Sakumo was looking at a stranger, a man far too broken, a man who'd lost everything and couldn't bear the thought of losing more.

"By all rights, she deserves someone better than me. I know," Kakashi uttered quietly, and finally turned to give him a sad, self-deprecating smile. "But I am selfish."

Sakumo was moving before his brain caught up with his actions, and he enveloped Kakashi in a tight hug, burying his face in his son's hair. "Don't you ever. Ever. Think of yourself that lowly ever again, Kakashi Hatake. You deserve everything you have and more."

Kakashi had gone still in his hold, but then tentatively, and shyly, reached to hug Sakumo back, and it broke his heart, shattered it, to feel like his son was so starved of affection and recognition. Had Sakumo been such a terrible father to him without ever noticing?

Had he not loved him enough, complimented him enough, encouraged him enough?

Feeling like a pile of trash, Sakumo squeezed Kakashi harder, trying to bleed as much conviction into his tone as possible. "I promise, son. I promise."

 **...**

Kakashi hadn't planned on telling Sakumo about Sakura just yet. In their world, it had been a small, impossible fantasy of his to have had a life in which he could've introduced Sakura to his father as his girlfriend.

He definitely hadn't planned to spill his guts, insecurities and fears alike, to his dad. But it had been so easy, so damn easy to surrender and let his walls fall apart around Sakumo, who'd never been anything short of supportive and loving. Half of what Kakashi had confessed were products of his original life, of people's opinions when they'd found out about his relationship with Sakura.

There was judgement, cruel words, unsavoury opinions. There'd been repulsive accusations, cutting and terrible. It hadn't been easy. It had taken a long, long time for people to move on.

And he'd been hated, labelled with false words. And once it became apparent that what he and Sakura had was fresh and new, pure and nothing like what they'd accused it of being, they turned their opinions around to hurtful phrases like 'he doesn't deserve her' and its variations.

Kakashi wasn't one to care about the opinions of strangers, but when so many of them felt like it was their business to advertise their thoughts and feelings about his love life, it was almost impossible to escape them.

They'd moved past that terrible stage of their life; after months and months, people just let them be. They no longer sneered at the sight of him or looked at Sakura with pity, like the twenty-one year old woman was a helpless, naive teenager taken advantage of.

But they'd left their scar. Kakashi, who'd always known he deserved nothing, would always lose everything, believed them. He knew Sakura was too good for him.

And despite that, he couldn't let her go. How would he ever hope to? She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. When he was a man who'd known loneliness his whole life, who hadn't known love since he'd been a toddler … Sakura was like a much needed breath of air, like a warm blanket straight out of the dryer on a chilly morning. Kakashi lacked the fortitude, the insurmountable strength to hold her back, lacked the willingness to withhold the warm fluttering she caused between his ribs when she breathed life back into his soul.

Now he stood almost awkwardly next to his father as she greeted Sakumo, smile firmly in place, bright and genuine, and he wanted to both disappear from sight and burst with giddiness. That small, impossible fantasy of his was coming to life, and he feared he'd wake up any moment.

"Sakumo-sensei," Sakura nodded, taking her shoes off by the door, "Sorry for being late. My shift at the hospital ended a little later than I'd expected."

"No worries, Sakura-chan," the older Hatake chuckled, leading them all inside to the set table. As Sakumo disappeared to get them drinks, Kakashi's shoulders finally relaxed, and he reached to squeeze Sakura's hand in greeting.

"Hey," he said, and he wished desperately for his mask because he felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment at the situation as a whole. "Sorry, this was a little abrupt. He got me in a corner."

Sakura squeezed his hand in return, comforting and always sure. "We knew it'd happen at some point ... don't worry about it."

They sat on opposites sides, Kakashi because he didn't want to be tempted to show any small signs of affection or possessiveness. His dad might be supportive, but Sakumo would never hesitate to rip into him if Kakashi slipped at any point.

Sakumo rejoined them seconds later, taking a seat next to Kakashi. "Help yourselves you two," he gently prompted as he scooped portions of food for himself. It had been a little over twenty-four hours since their conversation, and Sakumo was still displaying odd, protective instincts towards Kakashi. Not that he minded too much; it was a nice change.

They ate in comfortable silence for a while, Sakumo's eyes drifting from Kakashi to Sakura, back and forth, again and again until Sakura finally huffed a laugh and said, a little exasperatedly, "Alright, Sakumo-sensei, really, say what's on your mind before you give yourself a headache. I don't bite."

Kakashi's eyebrow twitched imperceptibly, but this was definitely not the time or place to make a lewd remark about Sakura and any biting she'd previously done within much more secluded and private settings.

Sakumo chortled in reply, a faint, embarrassed flush covering his cheeks. "Alright, alright. It's just I've been thinking about this ever since Kakashi told me you two were dating."

Humming around a bite of food, Sakura chewed and swallowed before saying, "Ask away."

"I wouldn't give him too much liberty," Kakashi warned with half-hearted smile.

Sakumo elbowed him. "Can it. I've been waiting for this day for years."

On the other side of the table, Sakura giggled into her fist. "What is it?"

"So you're dating my son?" Sakumo started, putting on his 'dad' voice that Kakashi hadn't heard in forever.

"Yessir." Sakura looked like she was resisting a laugh.

"And this is a serious thing, right? I mean no offence, of course," Sakumo said, and Kakashi suddenly wanted to disappear again, to be anywhere else really, especially since Sakura's eyes were dancing with mirth as she regarded his father with thinly veiled humour and affection.

"Yes, it's serious," the rosette answered without missing a beat. "Rest assured, I'm not here to ruin Kakashi … or his innocence … if he has any of that left anyway."

Kakashi gaped, and Sakumo's split-second shock was quickly covered with hasty chuckles. "I've always liked you Sakura-chan. I must admit I'm liking this new turn of events."

Sakura blushed prettily from across the table. "Thanks."

"And Kakashi won't tell me, but how long has this been going on?" Sakumo inquired, voice laced with barely hidden excitement, and Sakura only briefly glanced at Kakashi before responding.

"Ah well, a few years," Sakura replied with a half-truth, and Sakumo looked both shocked, but pleasantly surprised.

"A few years, and Kakashi hadn't said a thing?" Sakumo shot his son a quick glare. It had been, in fact, almost five years. But as seventeen year olds it would be strange to say they'd been dating for that long. Especially since Kakashi still wasn't sure of the nature of the relationship between the Kakashi and Sakura of this world.

He shrugged his shoulders, a little stiffly. "We were testing the waters."

It wasn't entirely a lie. They'd been incredibly hesitant to broach the growing feelings between the two of them. But they'd both owed to it to themselves to take a chance and be happy.

Kakashi hadn't looked back since.

"For years?" Sakumo grumbled, and although he appeared unhappy the flicker of something in his eyes gave him away. He was only pretending to be so.

He shrugged again and Sakumo dropped the topic, finally. "Well, eat up. Think of your poor dad and all the dinners he'd have to prepare to make up for lost years."

Sakura grinned and Kakashi nearly did the same, but he resisted; his mask was absent and he couldn't hide behind its barrier. Instead he rolled his eyes in a move he thought was very fitting of his younger self and said, "Great."

And despite earning a light, yet quite painful thump on the head for his bratty tone, Kakashi's chest felt incredibly light.

He could get used to this. He definitely could.


	3. Interlude

**III**

 **Interlude**

Seventeen-year-old Sakura Haruno sat amidst the wreckage of an apartment. She couldn't quite move yet; after all, her spine was out of alignment.

Just an hour ago, she was deep in enemy territory, Kakashi matching her every step. It was their first mission without Sakumo-sensei and they were being as cautious as they could afford.

One second she was wading through waist-high grass blades and the next she was on her back in some unfamiliar place. Her body was too stunned to get moving despite the imminent danger she felt in the atmosphere and all she'd managed to achieve was crawling up to a sitting position against the wall.

She'd been drifting in and out of consciousness, her waking thoughts filled with worry for Kakashi and her vivid nightmares haunted by the unfamiliar figure of a terrifying dark haired man, his eyes shining with the unmistakable red of the cursed sharingan.

She looked around her once again, the malice in the air was chilling her bones, and she was sure she'd be quaking with fear if it weren't for how exhausted she was.

It was clear that the house she was in had belonged to someone until very recently.

There was a dusty coffee cup on the nightstand, the lipstick stain on the rim fading with time. A thin layer of dust covered every surface, wood splinters and chucks of concrete littered the place.

A shattered photo frame lay just within her reach, lying pitifully face down on the ground. Idly, and not quite fully conscious, Sakura reached for it, trembling fingers slowly coaxing it closer.

It made quiet creaks as it dragged across broken glass, and Sakura felt the uncomfortable prickle of a cut on her middle finger from where the skin tore across a sharp edge.

"Sakura?"

At the sound of his voice, Sakura's attention was immediately torn away from the picture on the ground, where she'd never see the smiling faces of two people who looked eerily like her and the man who now stood in front of her, leaning heavily across what remained of the door frame.

"Kakashi..." she croaked, her eyes too bleary to make out the details of his face.

"Hey," his voice sounded rougher, deeper, but hearing it was enough to set her tears flowing. She'd been drifting in and out of a feverish dream after the other and could barely tell what was real from what wasn't.

"K-Kakashi," she sobbed as she watched him limp her way, rendering her vision a splash of colours.

What felt like forever later, she felt him kneel at her side with a quiet grunt. "Saku-ra," his voice broke in a weird place and he coughed harshly, the sound wet. "L-listen to me, something weird's happening."

Sakura leaned against him in a rare show of weakness and he let her, the rough pads of his fingers wiping at her tears. "I... I don't know where we are."

Kakashi slid down all the way so that he was sitting next to her. "I don't know either."

"Everything hurts," she choked.

"I know." He intoned.

And then they were silent, and soon they'd both passed out again, side by side like how Ino Yamanaka had laid their bodies in their apartment before it was destroyed, after she'd thought the both of them dead, the stains of her tears still on Sakura's cheek.


	4. Rude Awakening

**IV - Rude Awakening**

 **Present**

There were times in his life when Kakashi felt so naive, so silly. Just because they'd been thrust into some alternative universe, it didn't mean life stopped having its ups and downs. And up and down it rolled, inescapable and with the force of a gigantic wave.

Kakashi found himself constantly thrown into the fray, into situations he much rather _not_ be a part of.

Missions came and went, some familiar, some not so much, and he was yet again plagued with constant paranoia that this much preferred world would go up in flames and leave him with its charred remains.

He had survived the third shinobi war once. Had survived the fourth. But he feared his curse of outliving everyone despite all odds would finally run dry when he least wanted it to.

While in this world danger still lurked at every corner and brushes with death were dealt frequently and unrelentingly, it was still a world much brighter, much safer than the one they'd escaped.

Here, Kakashi could breathe. Here, he could take a second to relax, to think, to _feel_.

Kakashi gnawed on his lower lip, worried at the sudden turn of events. He hadn't meant to, but he had stumbled on a private meeting between Sakumo and the Third Hokage. A tense, private meeting.

Sakumo had an upset frown tugging his brows while the Hokage calmly sipped from his tea cup. "You understand that this is vital to our survival, Sakumo-kun."

"But they're still-they're still _kids_ ," Sakumo said with a slight waver in his voice and Kakashi immediately concealed himself and made sure his already masked presence was _undetectable_.

"You were at the front lines at age fourteen, Sakumo," the Hokage reminded him, voice chiding. "We can no longer afford to babysit them. I've taken your wishes into consideration; I've kept them away from the brunt of it for as long as possible. I believed you when you said they weren't ready … but they are now."

Sakumo opened his mouth to protest but Sarutobi cut him off. "Sakura Haruno has far surpassed both of our expectations ... you cannot shield her forever Sakumo. She's strong. And so are Naruto and Sasuke. We have to send them out."

Kakashi held his breath. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sakura to take care of herself because he _did._ It was just that fate hated him. He couldn't bare the thought of living in this world without Sakura there to keep him sane.

"Very well," Sakumo said, and then exhaled softly, the sound rather miserable. "Very well, Hokage-sama. What's the mission?"

"I want you to take Sakura and Kakashi with you. I want you to infiltrate Iwa's base in Kusakagure. I'm afraid we've been dealt too much loss, and we need to even the grounds. I'll be sending Minato, Naruto and Sasuke to destroy the Kannabi Bridge. I need _you_ to destroy all intel on us, and to burn the post down. Get anything you deem of value, and come back in one piece."

Kakashi felt his chest grow cold, his whole body tensing. The Kannabi bridge… that damned intel gathering mission... The two missions that killed Obito and drove his dad down the path of suicide _combined_.

He felt his lungs beginning to constrict, so tight, his breath growing shallower. They burned like they were made of coal, and his heart banged harshly against his ribcage. No, this was _not_ happening. It couldn't be. This was—

"—Kakashi?" His father's worried voice called for him, likely having heard the accelerating of his breath.

Kakashi vanished in a swirl of leaves, a soft word echoing in the space he previously occupied. " _Fuck._ "

 **...**

Sakura was in the middle of preparing dinner when Kakashi popped into her living room, face so white with fear she dropped the tomatoes in her hands and was at his side by an instant, cooking soup forgotten.

"Kakashi?" she gasped, falling to her knees beside him and holding his face between her hands, checking for any injuries, "What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost! Did something happen to—"

Sakura's words died in her throat when Kakashi's arms wrapped around her, and he draped all of his weight on her. His breathing was ragged and he trembled from head to toe, the evidence of another anxiety attack.

The rosette swallowed uneasily at the display and reached to soothe him with her chakra, wrapping her arms around him and cradling him to her chest like one might a scared child. "Hey, shh, it's going to be okay, alright? I'm here."

Kakashi's breath was still shallow, but the trembling ceased and he was suddenly clutching onto her, prying her away to look at her face. "M-my father," he swallowed thickly when his voice trembled and broke and tried again. "My dad, Sakura. The mission that … that …" he couldn't say it. "And the Kannabi bridge, when Obito … it's coming. Oh kami, what can I do? We're going _with my dad_ on the mission that _killed him_."

Sakura reached to gently pry Kakashi's hands off her shoulders, holding them tightly between her own. "I need you to breathe," she told him with a familiar calming yet stern tone, and he found himself drawing stability from the firm grasp of her hands around his. "Can you breathe for me?"

As if to let her know that he was listening, he gulped down a heavy breath, and Sakura smiled kindly, reaching to lower his mask and hold his face between tender hands. "Your dad is going to be _okay._ "

There was no way he could deny her words when she spoke with such conviction, with such surety. "You know why? Because _we're here_. And damned if we let the cycle repeat."

Her calm resolve was slowly breaking the tension in his body, and he found he could breathe easier. He nodded.

Sakura smiled, a comforting tilt of her lips. "That's right. We can do this. However it goes, we'll handle it as it comes."

Kakashi nodded again in acceptance, and Sakura drew him in for soft kiss. She leaned back to smile at him and pulled them to their feet. "I was making dinner. We should eat, and then we can discuss some plans to ease that busy mind of yours."

When she turned to leave, she was surprised to feel Kakashi's fingers wrap around her wrist. She paused, turning to look at him questioningly.

"Thank you," he said softly, all of a sudden feeling scarily calm, his worries momentarily silenced. "Really, Sakura."

Her replying smile was brilliantly beautiful.

 **...**

She was nestled under his arm, ear pressed to his chest. Her hair tickled his jaw, but it was only a slight inconvenience, not enough to prompt him to shuffle their rather comfortable position.

Sakura breathed evenly but she was not asleep. He could sense her eyelashes fluttering lightly over his skin in a barely-there, ticklish sensation. It was like she was purposely matching her breathing with his, and it put him in an almost meditative state.

As it was, Kakashi was still stuck in that strange there-but-not-there place. His body felt light, like he weighed nothing. But his mind processed information vividly and perfectly, able to catalogue every detail while remaining simultaneously aware of both Sakura and his surroundings. He heard every rustle, every breeze that blew by just outside the window.

He could smell the takoyaki from the shop below and all kinds of exotic scents mixing together, although the most prominent was the vanilla-scented body wash that clung to Sakura's body. If he focused just enough, he'd be able to make out the sound of conversation from the apartment across of Sakura's, but he chose to focus on the sound of her heartbeats instead.

They'd talked. They'd talked at length. Here in this very bed, they'd sat with one intention, and that was the most pressing matter of all.

Kakashi's anxiety refused to resurface for which he was thankful. His mind had fallen into a familiar mode, the one he'd adapted back in his ANBU days for the numerous assassination and espionage missions.

His emotions shut down, and his brain ran at a crisp and fast pace, filtering and sifting through information with ease, never once faltering. It was his perfect soldier mode.

But that was at first. Because while they'd sat in this very bed for the very specific reason of discussing their plans for survival of the upcoming mission, it was almost impossible not to … well, act on more deeply rooted longings.

While their mission was like a raging storm just at the horizon, it wasn't _here_ yet. Here was the monotone whir of the fan spinning overhead, generating a light breeze, and the sound of Sakura's broken sink dripping quietly in the kitchen _tap_ … _tap_ … _tap_.

Above all, here was the warmth of the bed sheets that smelled like Sakura. And while his brain realised the upcoming danger, was vividly aware of all the possibilities, his body refused to leave the calm state influenced by the aura that surrounded his partner.

And so they'd ended up tangled amidst the sheets, but there was nothing frantic or desperate about it, not like that last time in the shower when he was out of his mind with the need for her.

He'd taken his time to relearn her body again as she did the same for him and then … they'd ended up in this embrace, in that there-but-not-quite state.

There was not much they could do in terms of planning for his dad's mission. It was not something they'd done in the past, but Kakashi could recall bits and pieces of information that had floated to his ears back in his original life when his dad was disgraced.

He had chosen his comrades over intel. According to the shinobi handbook of rules, that was a crime.

Admittedly, it did cost the village a lot. But Kakashi was not going to allow history to repeat itself. This time they would be prepared. This time, he would save his dad before it was too late.

 **...**

Kakashi did not go back home that night. He knew it was selfish of him. Sakumo was probably worrying, but he couldn't find the willpower to detangle himself from Sakura's embrace.

And the next day, he didn't see his dad until their meeting time at the training grounds. Sakumo's lips were pressed into a thin line, his eyes twinkling with worry with a perpetual frown tugging his brows.

"Team," he greeted solemnly, his eyes drifting to scrutinise Kakashi's face. Kakashi held his gaze unflinchingly. "We have an important mission this week."

Obito and Naruto hooted excitedly while Sasuke looked quietly intrigued.

"Sasuke, Naruto," Sakumo started, running a hand through his thick fringe. "You'll be going with Minato to the Kannabi bridge. The Hokage will brief you as soon as Minato's back."

His eyes drifted back to Kakashi, and in extension, Sakura. "Kakashi and Sakura will be coming with me. But you, Rin and Obito, you're going to join Inoichi-san. Try to learn as much as you can from him, he's very skilled with information gathering and interrogation."

Obito's eyes widened comically and a happy flush lit his cheeks. "Ay Rin, we're going to make awesome partners!"

Rin nodded with a small smile, although her eyes flicked quickly to Kakashi and Sakura. "Yeah."

"As such, I need you—Sasuke and Naruto—and Rin and Obito, to do a few training exercises to strengthen your teamwork while I brief Kakashi and Sakura. Alright?"

"Hai!"

After instructing each duo on what to do, Sakumo drifted to the outskirts of the training grounds, Sakura and Kakashi trudging after him. He motioned for them to sit and joined them on the ground, crossing his legs and taking cover beneath the shade of an oak tree.

"Yesterday the Hokage assigned us a mission." His eyes briefly flickered to Kakashi, but he said nothing, for which the younger Hatake was thankful. "We're going to be infiltrating Iwa's post in Kusagakure to destroy it. You understand this is a very delicate mission with zero margin for error. A mistake could get us all killed."

Kakashi stiffened beside Sakura, and she reached across the dirt to absently stroke her pinkie across the side of his hand. The action did not go unnoticed.

"We're going at night, into enemy territory ... this will be dangerous. I need you to be sharp. You and Kakashi will be apprehending the guards while I sneak in to take care of a few things. We'll establish a perimeter and set up explosive tags, and once I'm out, we'll detonate them. Are we clear?" Sakumo's eyebrow arched inquisitively as he studied their expression.

Sakura seemed oddly calm, not excited nor dreadful. Kakashi's face was blank; his eyes held a strange, defeated look that Sakumo couldn't interpret. "Now that that's out of the way …"

Kakashi's blank mask broke for just a split second, but it was enough for Sakumo to see a flash of worry in his eyes before he asked something important. "You could've told me you weren't coming home last night Kakashi. I waited for you."

Shame briefly hunched Kakashi's shoulders. "Sorry … I went to visit Sakura, and I accidentally fell asleep."

It wasn't exactly a lie; there was some basis of truth to it. He had accidentally fallen asleep after they'd finished with their more interesting activities.

Sakumo's lips pursed briefly and then he stood abruptly. "Let's go get lunch."

Kakashi and Sakura blinked up at him quizzically, but both readily joined him.

The older Hatake led them towards his home, features strangely serious. Sakura shot Kakashi a look but all she got in reply was a tense shrug.

"Err … Sakumo-sensei?" Sakura tentatively called out. "Is something the matter?"

Sakumo ignored her and turned to take the paved path leading up to his porch.

He only responded when he shut the door behind them, the sound strangely ominous and final. "There's something you two aren't telling me."

Sakura and Kakashi visibly tensed.

"There is," Sakumo insisted, when Kakashi and Sakura moved to disagree.

The teens shared a look. "What makes you say that?" Kakashi finally voiced, and Sakura seemed as if she was holding her breath.

Sakumo suddenly growled, and Kakashi didn't remember the last time he saw his dad angry, let alone furious. "I'm not _stupid_."

The tone was so much harsher than Kakashi was used to hearing that Kakashi had to take a step back, stunned.

But Sakumo wasn't done. "I'm not _oblivious_ Kakashi. You think I didn't notice something was obviously _off_? This whole time, I knew you two were hiding something. But I thought if I gave you some time you'd confide in me about it of your own volition."

The rosette swallowed audibly, "Sakumo-sensei, really, I don't un—"

"Alright. I'll spell it out." He spat, moving closer to them, posture radiating authority. "How about the fact that the first time I see you after that damned mission you called me Hatake-sensei? Something you haven't done since the first day we met and I explicitly told you to call me Sakumo?"

Sakura's mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

Sakumo carried on, "How about the fact that Kakashi suddenly has random anxiety attacks, something he's _never_ suffered from?"

The older Hatake's gaze was piercing as he looked at his son. "How about the fact that you haven't summoned the pack once in the last month, even though you used to bring them out every week."

Kakashi suddenly felt stone cold at the mention of his ninken. He missed them so terribly but he knew summoning techniques defied space-time travel and he wasn't ready to find who he'd lost yet. The pack hadn't even tried to contact him yet and that by itself had bad written all over it.

Thinking about it was making him feel so nauseous he was sure his face was tinting green.

"And you Sakura. You showed up without your seal and never said a word about it. I thought surely you found a way to conceal it, and with your exhaustion I'd understand why it would become harder to sense but it's simply not there— care to tell me how you lost the chakra reserves of three _years_?" Sakumo might as well have jabbed his index finger into her collarbones for how accusing his tone sounded.

"So." Sakumo took a step back, crossed his arms sternly and glared at them unrelentingly. "What the hell is it? You know, I trust you two to _trust me._ Yet all you do is scurry around me like scared rabbits. Have you not got an ounce of—"

"Did you not stop to think for a second that maybe, _maybe_ it was so bad we couldn't tell you?"

Sakumo's eyes snapped to lock with his only son and what he saw there chilled him to the bone. Kakashi had recovered from his stunned expression and was now staring at him rather icily, like it was too damn inconvenient that Sakumo decided to bring this up now. "What could possibly be—"

But Sakumo was interrupted again, rather rudely, when Kakashi shoved forward to close the distance between them and stared him directly in the eyes. His voice came out rough, emotions seeping into it, anger and frustration and sorrow filling his tone. "Dammit dad, for how smart you claim to be …"

"Kakashi," Sakura warned from her place behind him, hand snatching his and tugging him a step back. "He doesn't know. Calm down."

"Then _tell me_ ," Sakumo demanded, and looking at him, Kakashi was suddenly reminded of how he was as a teenager, pent up and so frustrated, constantly feeling like he was blind and stumbling about in the darkness, desperate to make sense of everything that had happened to him.

When the teens shared another look, Sakumo nearly grunted with annoyance that they were still debating, still keeping secrets. " _Now_."

Kakashi took another step back and away from him, now standing shoulder to shoulder with Sakura, and despite how irritated Sakumo was, the action gave him a pause. Kakashi seemed to stand straighter, a strange fire in his eyes. He had yet to let go of Sakura's hand, and he squeezed it tighter, like his strength came from her proximity. Sakumo couldn't help but think that they belonged like that, standing next to each other.

"Fine," Kakashi snarled, and Sakura's hand tightened around his, intertwining their fingers in a blatant sign of support. "Perhaps it would explain everything if we told you who we _actually_ are."

A distinctly uncomfortable feeling gripped Sakumo's heart.

"I'm Kakashi Hatake, jounin of Konohagakure, _thirty-eight_ years old as of last month. This is Sakura Haruno, head of Konoha's central hospital and the second in line for Hokage after _me_ , _twenty-four_ years old." Kakashi glared, and there was something so achingly painful in his eyes, and his posture had gone so rigid like he expected Sakumo to lash out and _hit_ him.

But Sakumo was in no mental state to do that. He was too stunned to even talk.

So Kakashi carried on, bitterly. "We were at war with chakra monsters and _gods_ , all of the great shinobi villages allied and fighting together and all of us _dying_ , dropping dead like flies. And all I could think about for once in my life was that I _didn't_ want to die. That I wanted to live to see a peaceful world, that I wanted to spend more time with Sakura, that I wanted my fucking students back but they were _dead_."

Sakumo opened and closed his mouth a few times but no sound came out, and the utter look of disbelief that must've clouded his face had Kakashi scowling. "You don't believe me? You know if it wasn't for Sakura, I'd be dead. That's why she doesn't have her damn seal. She nearly killed herself getting us _here_."

A tremulous breath passed his lips. "I might not be _your_ son, but you're still _my_ dad. And not in my wildest dreams had I ever thought I'd get you back. But one thing I always believed in is that you'd _trust_ me above all. So I'm asking you this, to please believe that we only have your best intentions in mind."

Sakumo exhaled sharply at the words; he hadn't expected them to hit so deep. "You think I … don't believe you?"

"You do?" Sakura gasped, lips parting,

"I … I had my suspicions … just not this," Sakumo said honestly, his thoughts a mess. "I thought you were dabbling with forbidden jutsu. I never questioned your loyalty."

Technically, Sakura had been doing just that, but she refrained from correcting him.

"I have so many questions …" Sakumo muttered dejectedly, pinching the bridge of his nose, all signs of anger bleeding from him so that only exhaustion and worry remained. "First, how? Second, what do you mean when you say you're thirty-eight but Sakura is twenty-four when you're clearly the same age? Third, what the fuck, is there another shinobi war after this one?! And where was I in all of this, how come—"

"Dad." Kakashi cut his ramblings off, taking a calming breath. "Let's sit down okay? Can we do that?"

"Okay. Okay." Sakumo breathed too, aware this conversation was bound to be a long one. "But you have to tell me everything."

" ... Okay."

 **...**

If Sakumo had been shocked before, he was straight up knocked off his damn feet by the time Kakashi finished talking.

There was so much to think about, so much to wrap his mind around. Like the fact that he fucking suicided in some alternative universe, leaving his _only_ son to fend for himself; that was almost impossible to believe. Like the fact that his team, Sakura included, had been Kakashi's _students_. Like the much crazier thought of a _bijuu_ being created in hopes of putting the world in an eternal dream.

Madara was _alive_?! They were in trouble, so much trouble if that was true and did his son just say he had a sharingan and it was clawed out of his eye?!

Sakumo blinked a few times, trying to make sense of it all. He decided to start with the smaller issues at hand to ease himself into this clusterfuck. "You're dating your student?"

"She was only my student for a year." Kakashi said, sighing in defeat. "And admittedly I was quite a shitty teacher ... I all but left her to her own devices and focused on Sasuke. Hah, like that led to any good."

Right, apparently Sakumo's student Sasuke Uchiha was a psychopath in some other universe, enslaved and controlled by _Orochimaru of the Sannin_. Who was a _missing nin._

Kami, what kind of world did they come from?

"And when did … this … start?" Despite his carefully constructed questions, Sakumo could see Kakashi's eyes tighten, like he was offended.

"I didn't fucking groom her if that's what you're thinking," Kakashi spat venomously, like he was sick and tired of that assumption, and Sakumo immediately understood that it was a sensitive topic.

Sakura answered for him. "I began to see Kakashi romantically a few months before my twenty-first birthday. I'd harboured feelings for him since I was nineteen, and once I found out the feeling was mutual, I demanded he give us a try."

Sakumo's gaze drifted to her, her chin held high and eyes glinting with defiance. "I love Kakashi, I know he has no ill feelings or intentions for me. We keep each other sane."

It was sweet really, touching, but other matters weighed heavily on Sakumo. "What will you do?"

"What _can_ we do?" Sakura countered with a sigh. "As you can see most things here don't make sense or just aren't the same. Like the fact that you're alive. Like the fact that Kakashi and I are the same age."

He could see her point, and it only worsened his anxiety. "Shall we take this up with the Hokage?"

"Absolutely not," Kakashi disagreed, tone final. "We're not here to be dragged through prisons and interrogations and being mentally violated. We've had enough of that."

Sakura squeezed Kakashi's hand, leaning her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes, finally comfortable with openly displaying their closeness, and Sakumo was hit with another fact. That Kakashi had known Sakura longer than he'd known _him_.

The thought was slightly sickening, jarring with its implications, but he was glad the young woman had been taking care of his son.

He needed more time to think. Besides, hadn't Kakashi all but fled after crashing that meeting with the Hokage? It made no sense if he and Sakura were already war veterans and used to these missions for him to have become so agitated. "What of our mission, anyway? Is it all for naught?"

Kakashi stiffened again, and Sakura sighed aloud. She detangled herself from Kakashi and sat straight. "Sakumo-sensei. Kakashi believes this is the mission thatled to your … demise … and the other one was originally the mission that killed Obito. But seeing as Obito won't be going on that mission, we're more worried about it being Naruto to die in his place. If someone was meant to die then anyway."

Another metaphorical bomb dropped over Sakumo's unsuspecting head. Obito's _death_?

He opened his mouth to ask but then closed it immediately and decided he was better off not knowing.

Finally, "Do you have a plan?"

Kakashi and Sakura shared another one of their cryptic looks before Kakashi answered. "Since you're now aware of our situation, a lot has changed. As long as you cooperate with us, and trust our skills, I _think_ it should be fine."

"How will I trust your skills if I don't know anything about it?" Sakumo asked unsurely, not wanting to offend them but needing to address what was asked of him. "You said you're next in line for Hokage? Or are you already Hokage?"

It was so bizzare to attach the name Kakashi with the word "Hokage," and it didn't feel quite real. Which made it easier to say without sounding like he'd walked into a brick wall.

"Next in line," Kakashi clarified. "But seeing as I wasn't a fan and really just didn't want that position, Tsunade started to train Sakura just in case. Since Sakura was her apprentice."

"Tsunade is Hokage …?" Sakumo asked, the words strange and foreign on his tongue. Tsunade had left a few years ago, leaving Sakura to refine her technique by herself, and somehow Sakura had managed to replicate her seal at age fourteen, which was not only unprecedented, but mind blowing by itself.

He forced his thoughts to a firm halt when it tried to replay Tsunade's last words to him and how much it had hurt to … to …

Whatever. It didn't matter anymore.

"Yeah." Sakura's confirmation brought him back from the brink of falling back into that terrible hole of self-doubt and what ifs. "But let's spare you the details. Is there any way we could notify Minato-sama of this before he departs on his mission?"

"Minato- _sama_?" Sakumo mouthed wordlessly, floored yet again, but this time decided he _really_ was better off not knowing; information overload was a thing and he didn't enjoy it. "Sure we could. What do you plan to tell him?"

Silence descended on them, thick and suffocating. It was becoming more and more apparent how out of their depth Kakashi and Sakura were, how little of a plan they really had.

And this whole fiasco raised another quite terrifying question.

What happened to _his_ Kakashi?


	5. The Unknown

**V - The Unknown**

 **Interlude Cont.**

Everything was so heavy and intangible that seventeen-year-old Kakashi Hatake was convinced he'd never wake up again.

His consciousness was much like the weak flickering of a candle, threatening to extinguish at the gentlest breeze. And yet, despite the coming and going of his awareness, all he saw was darkness.

Sakura's body must've still been leaning against his, because despite the fact that he couldn't quite feel her weight, her warmth managed to somehow permeate the blackness that still engulfed him.

And then it happened.

An explosion so violent, so intense, it made his teeth rattle and his skull connect roughly with the wall behind him. The ground trembled beneath some invisible force, and it must've been adrenaline, or the sudden terrible fear that seized his heart, but whatever it was, he found he could move again, and he was glad for it. The apartment they were in was beginning to crumble to dust, and if he didn't grab Sakura and make a move to escape, they'd be crushed to death.

Just as that thought finished registering in his mind, a big chunk of the ceiling began to fall apart, raining stones and debris on their heads.

"Shit," he said with feeling, forcing his arm behind Sakura even when it screamed in protest, white-hot pain lancing through it.

Through the stinging bleariness in his eyes, Kakashi watched larger boulders of rock begin to fall and forced his body to conjure up the strength to form one vital hand sign.

 _Hiraishin no jutsu… please work…_

He felt the tug, like an uncomfortable and cold crawling sensation at the back of his neck, and let it take him away.

The pain that followed the transition had him bending over a bush and hurling blood and bile. He heaved harshly and relentlessly for what felt like forever, his body shivering and sweating.

He was openly crying now, tears streaming down his face, and he was helpless to stop it. His body was past the point of controlling his physical functions, let alone his emotional ones.

Thankfully, the shivering soon began to subside, and he could breathe again. It seemed that while his brain was trying to regain control of his bodily functions, Sakura had been in a similar condition as him, although her seal appeared to be repairing all the damage she'd sustained yet.

Noticing he was done heaving his organs up, she crawled beside him and attempted to help him straighten to a sitting position but he immediately collapsed back with a grunt.

"Kami," Sakura wheezed, "Kakashi, you're dying."

 _No shit,_ he wanted to say, _I can feel it._

He could barely make out the outline of her face anymore, that same darkness from earlier trying to pull him back.

"Kakashi?" There was a high note of panic in her voice that wasn't very familiar to him. He immediately wanted to reassure her that he could still hear her, but then when he tried to move his mouth to form the words, no sound came out. He blinked hard to clear his vision, but it got even more distorted.

Struggling to remember how to speak, he only managed to strain out a wheeze-like sound, and then he was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

"Kakashi! Stay with me! Oh Kami no, no, _no_...!" Her voice was fading, becoming incomprehensible.

 _Ah, this is bad …_ he thought detachedly. The darkness was becoming heavier, almost suffocating, the pain now a distant, dulled throb.

 _… I don't want to die …_

And then he knew nothing.

 **...**

 _ **A Flash Memory**_

 _"Ne ne Kakashi … that girl is staring at you."_

 _"Who?"_

 _"That one with the pink hair … she's pretty cute don't you think?"_

 _"You're an idiot, Naruto."_

 _"Hehe, you're blushing!"_

 _"Shut it."_

 _"Alright, alright…"_

 **...**

Kakashi was reminded of warmth, of orange and pink and sitting beneath his favourite tree one spring morning. He was reminded of a little pink haired girl twirling in her flowery dress, laughing happily, grinning so brightly it almost hurt to look at her.

And just as abruptly, the warmth vanished to be replaced by cold dread, and the image disintegrated like the end of a dream.

Feeling spread back into him, jolted him so suddenly, he wanted to scream at the sudden and intense rush of it, but he couldn't quite remember how to make his voice work.

It seemed he wasn't meant to part with the world just yet.

Kakashi groaned, and then he was sputtering and coughing; everything hurt so desperately it pulled him out of the cotton-like world of dreams and viciously thrust him back into the real world where everything ached. The dream was already rapidly fading from his consciousness, except it wasn't a dream, but a memory from long ago he'd since forgotten.

" _...kashi..._ "

" _Kakashi!_ "

He blinked blearily at the pink halo towering over him, " _Stay with me_ , Kakashi, or so help me I'll haunt you even in the after life!"

Warm droplets rained down on his face, _drip-drop, drip-drop_ , landing on his cheeks and across his lips, salty and ticklish.

"S-S...ak...ura …" he managed with some struggle, if only to let her know he was still alive. The steady stream of her chakra beneath his skin was a familiar sensation, would almost be pleasant if everything didn't hurt like he was being burned alive.

"Stay with me," she barked. Her touch was rough as she ripped his clothes away; her hands felt bigger, her fingers longer.

He latched onto that one thought like a lifeline and hung all his focus on it to keep from fading back into the darkness.

Kakashi concentrated on the way she brushed his hair away from his face, on the fluttering of her fingers over his pulse, on the rough jab of her index finger down his chest … and soon the pain abated, and he could see and think without feeling like he was trying to physically push his soul out of his body.

He blinked at the image of an older Sakura, her short pink hair covered in grime and blood and falling over her shoulders in tangled knots. She blinked back at him with the same hint of wonder he felt in her features.

"You're …" he blinked hard, wondering if he was dreaming again. When she didn't de-age back to her familiar image, he finished lamely with: "... old?"

A faint smile tugged at her mouth for just a moment before her face twisted with worry. "You too. I don't know what's happening."

Kakashi couldn't confirm for himself yet if he, too, was old but he'd take her word for it. For now.

The longer her chakra circulated his system, the better he felt. He was no longer clawing at the edge with desperate fingers trying to stay afloat. But he could see the strain his healing was causing her. The darkness beneath her eyes seemed permanent, her concentrated frown of exhaustion and pain etched deep into her skin.

As soon as he thought he could move enough, his fingers latched onto her wrist and pried her hands away. "That's enough," he rasped, grip firm. "You're going to run yourself dry … you'll lose your seal."

The prospect was alarming and not something he wanted to be considering right now.

Sakura seemed on the edge of collapsing herself, but, predictably, opened her mouth to argue. However, one fierce look from Kakashi was enough to shut any of her protests up.

"We need to conserve energy," he gave the order as her commander on this mission. "Let's find out where the hell we are."

 **...**

 **Present**

Sakumo raced through the thick trees of the Land of Fire, Kakashi and Sakura flanking him, replaying everything that had happened in the past few days in his head.

It had been easier to convince Minato of Kakashi's and Sakura's predicament than it had been him. Sakura had elaborated, and in depth, on what exactly she'd done to land them here.

And Minato, being the genius and expert that he was on time and space jutsu, lauded _her_ a genius for being able to manipulate one of the Second Hokage's jutsus with medical chakra. Minato had explained that the common issue with time travel was not the jutsu itself, but that it was the survival of the time traveller through that journey. There were many forbidden time travel jutsu that were simply unusable.

He deemed Sakura, and perhaps Tsunade, the only people ever capable of such a feat due to the possession of their seal.

Minato had expressed his utter disbelief at the survival of Kakashi, too. He theorised that time-traveller Sakura must be much stronger than _their_ Sakura or that perhaps both of their powers had to be used to complete the shift.

Unfortunately for Sakumo, with Minato's intricate and detailed explanation of what might have taken place in this time-space shift, he had indirectly confirmed the gnawing, burning thought in the back of his head. It seemed, after all, that Kakashi and Sakura had really swapped places with their alternate selves.

His son was now fighting in the Fourth Shinobi World War.

 **...**

Kakashi had twisted and turned and twisted again but to no avail. He couldn't sleep. The forest's quiet was gritting on his nerves with the absence of night life.

He hadn't gotten a wink since Minato's revelation. This world wasn't going to last— it wasn't theirs to have. They were stripping some alternative version of themselves the chance at happiness.

They'd caused some younger, different version of themselves to wind up in the Fourth fucking World War. Right this second, a seventeen-year-old Sakura was fighting _Madara Uchiha._

They had to go back. There must be a way they could reverse the switch.

The thought was as urgent as it was sickening. Kakashi was yet again reminded of how naive he could be to expect happiness, that he was only meant for pain and war. This world _wasn't theirs_. This Sakumo wasn't his.

They belonged in a place of death and destruction; it was hopeless however he turned it in his head. Minato could probably help them return. And then … perhaps he'd die. Perhaps they'd all die. How much of them was left that they could lose before it killed them?

He turned again. It was unbearable. He didn't remember feeling such acute desperation in his life. Briefly, and shamefully, he wished they had never attempted this trip in the first place, that he had never gotten a taste of _this_ only to be asked to let go of it.

Kakashi was so tired of losing everything.

He blinked away the darkness, giving up on getting any sleep. Sakura was just within reach, so close he could hear every breath that her lungs drew in, and his fingers found hers, holding onto her hand and hoping it would make him feel better, if only a little. Her eyes fluttered open instantly and bright green met his in the darkness.

Sakura's body slowly twisted to face his, the corner of her mouth twitching up, but it was a sad smile, almost like she could read his exact thoughts or like she sensed his hopelessness through his touch. "What's that busy mind of yours up to now?" she whispered, her other hand reaching to brush stray silver strands out of his eyes.

He contemplated what he could tell her. How much he could tell her. "We have to go back." The words finally voiced cemented their finality in a way his mind hadn't.

He hadn't expected for his voice to betray just how much sorrow he felt, but Sakura had always made it so easy for him to fall apart. Her smile was heartbreaking to look at as she replied, "I know."

The resignation emanating from her was very similar to how he'd been feeling all day. The thoroughly defeated calm her body slumped into was a familiar sensation, although he'd never seen it on her.

"Are you scared?" he finally asked her, still feeling her fingers brushing gently through his hair, like she was comforting him in the only way she knew she could.

She seemed to consider this before she answered. "Yes. Are you?"

"I'm terrified," he told her honestly.

It pulled another smile out of her, and she scooted closer to him, sleeping bag dragging across the grass. "Admit it, you're just fishing for a hug," she said lightly as she nuzzled closer to his side, like she knew he was mere seconds away from falling apart and was trying to delay the inevitable.

Kakashi wrapped her up in his arms like so many times before. "You caught me," he choked out and buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent deeply.

He thought about losing her then. What it would be like to live in a world without her. It was too tangible in this second; their numbered days ticking away. Kakashi hadn't allowed himself to think about that since the beginning of the war—had forbidden himself to even consider it.

Kakashi had always known just how much he cared for Sakura, and he thought he knew how deeply his feelings ran, but he was still surprised at the jolt of desperate pain he felt in his chest at the thought of losing her. It was terrible, unimaginable, and his breath caught in his throat, stuck there. The overwhelming need to cry was staggering. He wasn't a man of many tears; he'd rarely even felt the need to let them out, dealing better with squashing them away.

And yet …

He shuddered as he forced his lungs to take up oxygen and let those tears overflow. Just this once, he told himself. Just this once.


	6. Night Terrors

**VI - Night Terrors**

 **Fourth Shinobi War**

Kakashi and Sakura had wandered around for a while, navigating through collapsed buildings and gigantic boulders. The perpetual terror in the air never ceased, and the suffocating thickness of the atmosphere only seemed to get worse as the hours of this strange and terrifying reality ticked by.

It was obvious now that they were in Konoha. The proof was all around: a broken sign that read Ichiraku, a familiar road littered with debris and rocks, the Yamanaka flower shop with shattered glass windows and rotting flowers on display.

The sight of it had made both of them sick to their stomach and more than a little terrified of what it meant. If this was the Konoha of some distant future, it was all too clear that they were heading towards more death and destruction. Perhaps a more permanent one by the look of it.

They'd found plenty of dead bodies amidst the wreckage in varying states of mauling. At first, Sakura had rushed to their sides, checked to see if any of them were still able to be saved, but after twenty or so bodies, she'd completely lost hope.

She now wore an expression of bone-deep exhaustion and depression, her steps faltering every few seconds. Kakashi let her lean against him as they continued on their way through another decaying building. They were on the search for clean water to wash the dirt and blood away. Eventually, Kakashi steered them in the direction of the ANBU headquarters, knowing it'd be the least likely place to get destroyed in the event of a war.

The concrete walls were dirty, the hallways eerie silent, and Kakashi had never thought this place could ever get so quiet, or empty.

No one intercepted them, and no one came searching for them. No alarms were set off when he yanked one of the lockers open, even when the door broke off its hinges and went skidding onto the floor.

He peered inside and found a few jounin uniforms, a pair of sandals and bandages. A water canteen sat on the small shelf, a weapon holster beside it.

When he grabbed hold of all the necessary items and broke a few more lockers for more bandages and weapons, he followed the feeling of Sakura's chakra to the showers at the back.

He found her slumped on one of the benches, staring unblinkingly at the tiles. Kakashi sighed.

She looked up at him, like the sound of his exhale was the only reason she'd noticed him. Exhaustion swam in her unfocused eyes, the bruises beneath them an obvious sign of chakra deprivation.

That would be his fault. She brought him back from the grips of death, after all.

"Can you walk, soldier?" he barked, using his more authoritative tone. That got a reaction out of Sakura, her back straightened instinctively, and her eyes flickered in recognition.

She shook her head.

Kakashi sighed again as he approached her. He knelt in front of her, making sure to maintain eye contact. "I'm going to help you undress … okay?"

Sakura gave one nod. Kakashi pushed her back so that she rested against the wall. He'd been in her position many times before, chakra exhaustion and blood loss making him less than functional.

His father had been in his position so many times after Kakashi had joined ANBU.

Kakashi grabbed a kunai from his pouch and made a vertical cut through her white t-shirt. It fell apart, along with the fishnet she wore beneath it, to expose her bandaged chest and torso.

He was more careful with these, as he could see her bleeding through the one across her abdomen. He didn't dare go near her chest bindings.

By the time he was done easing her out of her trousers he was much more awake and alert than when he first started, feeling the need to be extremely cautious. He made sure he wasn't touching any more of her skin than was absolutely necessary, even when she seemed like she didn't care about a single thing in the world then.

Kakashi could feel her eyes on him, following his every move, tracing over his profile, and he had to swallow before he met them with his own. He wondered if it was just him or if the atmosphere was even thicker now. "I'll be right back."

He shuffled through one of the cubicles, making a rag out of one of the towels and soaping it. The other piece he only wet and squeezed dry of excess water. Sakura was where he left her when returned, and he crouched next to her to begin cleaning the layer of blood and mud that clung to her skin.

Starting at her feet, he worked his way up her legs, eyes resolutely fixed on his task and ignoring the flexing of her muscles under his careful touch. It was wildly distracting when he reached her thighs, the strip of material covering her taunting him in a way he hadn't expected. Kakashi quickly redirected his gaze to her stomach and moved to clean that area. He lightly patted away the crusted blood, making sure to clean the wound as gently as possible.

"Kakashi…" Sakura finally said, a flicker of emotion in her voice bringing his gaze to her own. She looked on the verge of tears.

This was so unlike her, he wasn't sure how to respond. The absolute raw longing to pull her closer was staggering, but he wished to comfort her somehow. He would never forget all the times she was there for him when he was all but drowning.

Suddenly, she was moving, leaning forward and draping herself over him, her face pressing firmly against his exposed throat. Her tears burned his skin, mingled with the blood and the sweat and the dirt that clung to him.

He swallowed thickly and decided he could allow her this not because his heart was racing a million miles a second because of it but because she deserved her vulnerable moments, too.

"Hey …" he said as gently as he could—as gently as he knew how to be—threading the fingers of one hand through her hair and returning her hug. It felt as if the emotional trauma of all the events that happened today—this strange reality, the terror in the air, almost losing _him_ —was finally hitting her all at once. She trembled quietly with the force of her sobs, hands clutching tightly onto him as if wishing to pull him _into_ her. "It's okay … we'll figure this out. Hush now, where's my mighty Sakura … you'd kick my ass if this was me …"

She laughed wetly, the short sound painful and raw. "Shut up … fuck you …"

"That's more like it," he said lightly, a small, rueful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

She did not attempt to disengage their hug, and Kakashi couldn't _not_ feel the softness of her breasts pressed so closely to his chest. "Are you okay now?"

Sakura snorted against him, nuzzling closer to him, and he didn't imagine he smelled all that pleasant but clearly she was unbothered by it. "Nothin' about this 's okay, Kakashi."

"Wrong wording perhaps," he softly acquiesced. He let his fingers trail through her hair, combing through the knots there. It was too much to resist, this perfect opportunity of closeness which _she_ initiated. He half wished the world wasn't ending so that he'd have an excuse to act rash and impulsive and … and …

He didn't know. Kiss her or something.

 _Isn't the end of the world the perfect time for that?_ The snide little voice at the back of his head argued, but he responded by immediately squashing it away.

He basked some more in their closeness, committed the feeling of her to his memory, the warmth of her, the exact rhythm of her heartbeat, the feeling of her hair between his fingers, although tangled and crusty with blood. It was with great reluctance that he finally detangled them to look at her.

It was with even greater self control that he watched her face, flushed, and her eyes swollen, and the most fucking endearing and vulnerable he'd ever imagined her to be. He reached with his towel and wiped away the evidence of her tears. "Alright, Soldier?"

It was meant to be a command, but it came out much more affectionate than he expected or intended it to be.

She gazed at him steadily for a moment, and then she reached with her scarred palm to cup his cheek briefly, a fleeting warmth that made him _ache_ before it slipped away, like it was a figment of his imagination and nothing more. He swallowed with some difficulty, suddenly overcome with intense emotions so complex he didn't think he could ever detangle them.

He tentatively reached for her wrist and carried on with his self-assigned task; he would have to think about this later, maybe when they weren't at risk of dying any second. "Let's finish cleaning you up."


	7. Down Memory Lane

**VII - Down Memory Lane**

 **Third Shinobi War**

A quiet rustling of leaves followed Team Sakumo all the way to their destination, the weather a pleasant mix of cool wind and warm sunbeams.

Despite that, they were all in a pensive mood, moving about silently. Sakumo would occasionally make them stop to ensure they were untraceable still before carrying on with even more silence.

Evening was approaching, and with it their destination. Sakumo had cautioned them, multiple times, to follow his lead. Neither of them had complained or voiced the fact that they were capable jounin themselves.

The chill that began to sweep the forest was a familiar reminder of cold nights spent in ruined buildings, seeking a few hours of rest amidst the raging storm that was the Fourth Shinobi War. A familiar reminder that they'd be heading there soon, that any day now they'll be in the middle of the fray, their fate undecided.

The thought was colder than the forest.

Sakumo's rapid steps slowed, and he came to a gradual stop behind a small hill, his hand rising in a fist to halt them. He disappeared behind the foliage of some trees, steps muted.

Kakashi and Sakura drifted closer, quiet, their eyes trained on the space where Sakumo previously stood. He reappeared a minute later and slipped down to their side, gaze hard. "You know the plan," as all he said, and then they shot through the shadows, fast on his heels.

Crickets and the nightlife were loud in the quiet space. It was approaching two in the morning, and their target was a dim, secluded area within the trees.

Sakumo glanced at both of them,then pointed towards the dimness ahead with his thumb. He mouthed, "Go."

Sakura and Kakashi shared a look before they dispersed. Sakumo didn't know what to expect, the duo did mention they were jounin, but he wasn't counting on receiving the signal to proceed a mere _eleven_ minutes after their disappearance. He stared at the the small, familiar slug circling his wrist, and was reminded of the thousands of times Tsunade had healed him this way.

She'd always kept a Katsuyu on him, promising the slug would heal him if needed and would alert her if she couldn't. Sakumo shook his head free of thoughts of Tsunade and how her departure had been like a betrayal, like abandonment. He needed to focus.

He formed the necessary hand signs and was gone with a flicker, not a leaf out of place.

 **...**

Sakumo, with the help of Kakashi and Sakura achieved a perimeter and positioned the explosive tags around it. They made a quick work of it, and Sakumo was rather impressed with their skills, despite knowing they were time travelers who'd faced bigger monsters than Iwa.

During their rapid in-and-out of every tent, they'd stumbled across a warehouse, a shahby place so foul smelling, they nearly gagged.

"What is this?" Kakashi hissed, face scrunching.

Sakura held her hand up in a silent order to shut it. She motioned at the boxes in the warehouse and said with a grim twist to her lips, "Organs."

The place was too dark, but further at the back were dimmer shadows hanging from the ceiling, the sickening smell of rotten flesh permeating the air.

Something warm and thick landed on Sakumo's cheek, and he looked up to he greeted by the horror of severed feet and hands hanging from hooks above him.

"Kami, what the fuck?" he muttered and motioned for his teammates to quickly leave the room. They flash stepped all the way to the perimeters and gasped for clean air.

Kakashi looked a little pale while Sakura appeared to be disgusted, but relatively put together. Sakumo wondered what she'd seen, as a medic and as a war veteran, if this was something frequent in her career. He pursed his lips when he recalled their conversation many nights ago. "You allied with these freaks in your world?"

The youngsters turned to stare at him; Kakashi seemed taken aback, but Sakura only looked bewildered. "Are you serious? _We_ produced _Orochimaru_ ," she all but hissed at him. "This? This is _nothing_. _Nothing_ compared to what that snake has done, to us and to them. I don't see Iwa experimenting on humans, on _children_. I don't see them inflicting cursed seals left and right, twisting people's will to their own and stripping them of their most basic rights … I definitely don't see Iwa locking them in chicken cages, covered in piss and blood and rotting like _animals_."

Sakumo stared at her and at the vehemence in her gaze and hated himself for remembering Tsunade and her righteous anger, the way she used to glare at him exactly like Sakura's scowl right now. "Konoha is _not_ innocent. All of us are criminals in this war, Sakumo- _sensei_."

He continued to stare at her, this woman who wore the face of his student and the anger and wiseness of his lover and couldn't begrudge Kakashi for falling for her.

Sakumo nodded his reluctant agreement, about to give the order to proceed when suddenly the ground trembled and a bright orange flame exploded some distance away. His eyes widened, "The tags!"

"We must've missed someone and they stumbled over them. Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Kakashi grabbed Sakura's wrist and began sprinting in the opposite direction. They zigzagged around a few fences and traps, and then jumped into the trees.

However, the trembling of the ground verged on violent and the trees ahead of them—their route of escape—began to collapse, blocking their way out, the fire relentlessly chasing their tail.

"Fuck," Kakashi swore, coming to a stop as the flames began to touch at the fallen trees blocking their exit. "We're stuck."

Sakumo's mind worked rapidly, trying to find an escape route, there must be one, after all it— his mind screeched into a halt as a battle cry rang from Sakura and suddenly she was flying over him, eyes blazing and fist raised and she punched straight through the burning bark, splinters flying all around her.

His mouth parted in shock as the burning log burst into dust and burning embers and Sakura stood panting on the other side, knuckles bleeding and scorched but rapidly healing, and wow, that was as stupid as it was marvellous and this girl didn't get nearly enough recognition!—

—"Are you crazy?!" Kakashi cried in panic from beside him, and the next second he was beside Sakura, roughly shaking her shoulders. "Three centimetres right and you would've caught on fire!"

Sakumo stared at them incomprehensibly and felt somewhat like an outsider again. He was perfectly aware of every sound and step in his surroundings, and yet they were a secondary thing at the back of his head as he watched those two interact and was reminded of _his_ Kakashi and Sakura.

He stumbled his way to them, manoeuvring around fallen branches and burning sticks. Were they in love too? They'd always been very protective and perceptive of each other, could it be that even in this world, the two of them were together?

"Freeze!" bellowed an angry voice, chorused by a few hoots of agreement, causing all three of them to immediately spin around in a tight circle, back to back. Beyond the fire and the fallen trees was a forming ring of Iwa ninja, fierce scowls shadowing their face. Some were grinning victoriously as they peered at them like a lion might a herd of deer.

"My, my, if it isn't Konoha's prized Sakumo Hatake— aw look, isn't that his son? We got the whole family lads!" growled the guy in the centre with a shark-like grin, identifying himself as the leader. His eyes flitted to Sakura only momentarily. "You must be the girlfriend! Don't worry," he said mockingly. "We'll make this as slow and as painful as possible …"

There were way too many Iwa ninja swarming their surroundings, stretching as far as the eyes could see, rows and rows of them and Sakumo knew then it was a trap. They'd disbanded all the shinobi that were in the post; these must've been camped outside in the forest, waiting hungrily for their chance to kill some Konoha ninja.

 _Did they sacrifice the lives of their kin inside for this ploy? They really are lunatic scumbags,_ Sakumo thought darkly. As it was, they were surrounded by at least two hundred Iwa ninja.

They were effectively trapped and completely fucked and Sakumo should've considered this, how could he have—

" _Shaaaannnnarrrooooo!"_ Sakura's battle cry dragged his attention to her, and there she was, slamming her fist against the ground, and the whole forest seemed to tremble with her anger. The dirt exploded into a million pieces, sending tens of Iwa shinobi flying in the air, some hitting the trees with such force they were impaled on the branches, rendering them effectively dead.

—or maybe they weren't so fucked. They had a literal human bulldozer by their side. He'd make sure to thank her later.

"Sakura," he barked, taking on his role as commander. He wouldn't —couldn't— expect Sakura to be able to neutralise all of them; they had to get out of here as soon as possible lest they risked Iwa contacting some back up forces. "Make way for us to escape!"

Sakumo whipped his chakra sabre out as the Iwa ninja swarmed them, charging it with his chakra and jumped into the fray, where Kakashi was wielding electricity from his elbow down, ripping hearts still beating out of their cages.

The sight was a little breathtaking. His son was undeniably strong, but he never viewed him as terrifying before this second. With startling clarity, as hot blood flew in his field of vision and he sliced clean through someone's neck with his blade, Sakumo realised that Kakashi had become like him: a hardened shinobi— or what some might call a cold-blooded killer.

Kakashi spun around, digging his heel into the dirt as he off-balanced an Iwa shinobi, and then he did something completely out of the realms of possibilities. He thrust his fist into the ground and formed unfamiliar hand signs, and then the shinobi forming the tightest ring around him were being electrocuted until they caught fire.

"What the fu—" The man closest to Sakumo was just beginning to turn to face his fallen comrades but his moment of inattention cost him his life, and Sakumo didn't give him a chance, charging his sabre with electricity and thrusting it straight through his heart.

Meanwhile, Sakura was slicing through them like a hot knife through butter while he and Kakashi tried to fend off the swarms of enemy nin circling them. He heard multiple Iwa nin screaming in the distance to focus on the girl, but each of them seemed to drop dead as soon as they made a sound.

Sakumo was beginning to struggle against the fifty-something ninja clawing their way through his defenses, but he took a big chunk of them out with a fire release just in time for Sakura to land next to them, a bloody smile on her face. "Hello boys, let's play, shall we?"

The man closest to her began to advance, but then Sakura thrust her chakra blade clean through his neck, his arterial spray like violent showers drenching the whole area.

"You—!" growled one of the men, whipping out his sword and slicing wildly at Sakura, "You'll pay for—" and then he was on the ground, arm detached from his body. All Sakura had done was grab his blade and twist, the sharp end cutting into her hand but the force of her chakra had torn his arm straight out of its socket.

"Sakumo-sensei," she grunted as she bashed the faces of two Iwa shinobi together and flash-stepped behind another. "Get Kakashi and get out of here!"

"No way!" Kakashi snapped from somewhere nearby, where he had one shinobi by the throat.

"You'll hold me back!" Sakura cried, irritation seeping into her voice. "Get. _Out_!"

Sakumo pursed his lips as he snapped the neck of his captive, then jumped out of the tight circle of Iwa shinobi surrounding him. Some tried to follow, but Sakura took turns grabbing them by the ankle and slamming them into the dirt with enough force to shatter bones. He had no reason to believe she couldn't handle it anymore.

"Kakashi." He jumped to Kakashi's side, prying a ninja off him and thrusting his blade into the man's eye socket. "Let's go!"

A fierce sound like a wounded animal rippled from Kakashi's throat, but he complied, and then they were taking the remaining tree branches away, leaving Sakura behind.

Some ninja made to chase them but Sakura began to effortlessly uproot trees and send them hurtling like kunai at their enemies. "Eyes on me sweethearts, I'm your opponent!"

Sakumo ducked under one of the flying trees, an incredulous laugh escaping him as he dragged Kakashi by the collar. "You sure like them terrifying!"

His son's moodiness continued all the way to the edges of the clearing they chose to stop at, although he appeared to have calmed down from the adrenaline of battle.

"Oh come on, loosen up," Sakumo nudged him, smiling gently. "Do you really doubt her? She's amazing."

Kakashi's shoulders relaxed into a less rigid posture, but he remained stubbornly silent.

"You really should give her more credit she was whooping ass." He swore Kakashi's lips twisted into a faint smile beneath his mask, and Sakumo nudged him again, "That's more like it."

Terrified screams and explosions continued to ring in the distance, and Sakumo wondered what sort of hell Sakura was unleashing on those Iwa ninja.

"It's not that I doubt her," Kakashi finally said, wiping blood off his cheek. His eyes flickered in the direction that lead to Sakura. "Of course not, I'm not blind … let's just say we usually don't leave each other behind."

"Separation anxiety?" Sakumo teased.

Kakashi shrugged, making an effort to meet his eyes. He failed, his gaze dropping to his hands in his lap. "If that's what you want to call it … I've lost a lot of people … over the years I mean. Almost everyone I've ever loved. Can you fault me for being protective of the only one I have left?"

Sakumo's smile waned and disappeared to be replaced by a sinking feeling in his chest. Right. Tragic Kakashi from a tragic alternative univers. Would he ever get used to this Kakashi who rarely smiled? This Kakashi who seemed like he carried the weight of the world combined?

"No," Sakumo acquiesced softly. "No, I cannot."

 **...**

 **Fourth Shinobi War**

Despite deciding to lie low for a while, just until they recovered, war found its way to them, much like it did everything else.

In fact, it knocked right on their door. At five thirty in the morning, the ANBU base began to crumble on their heads as a result of more violent man-made earthquakes.

Kakashi was tempted to throw his hands up in the air and demand the gods give them a break from crumpled ceilings threatening to squash them. It was the second time in less than day.

It was by pure coincidence that the first pebble to fall connected with his head, knocking him awake. And they were damn lucky Sakura could punch through rocks. She'd immediately sprung to her feet and literally wrecked their way out of the base.

They stared at the collapsed pile of rocks for a while, Kakashi frustrated and Sakura with a sense of helplessness. They had restored enough of their chakra to be able to fight—they had no excuse anymore; they couldn't sit this one out.

"Let's go find out exactly what we're dealing with," Sakura finally said. Kakashi nodded, and together they flash-stepped away.

And, oh boy, did they wish they hadn't done that.

Sakura immediately ducked an exploding boulder hurtling their way, pulling Kakashi down with her and flattening herself against the ground.

Kakashi hissed at the foul smell of death that seemed to permeate the air and the very ground they walked on. The stench almost triggered his gag reflex.

They jumped back to their feet, a little disoriented by the fast-paced nature of this fight as they both tried to get their bearings and make sense of their surroundings.

There was a lot of smoke in the air; it hung thickly over everyone's head, reducing vision and making breathing more difficult. The sounds of weapons clashing rang loud, accompanied by gut-wrenching screams here and there. The invisible enemy appeared to be quick on their feet; there was a lot of terrified shouts cut short.

"Kakashi," Sakura said by way of warning, slowly shifting to press her back to his. Their invisible enemy was strong if Sakura could sense them.

And then it made an appearance, a living, breathing hybrid of plant and man twisted into one, with sharp teeth and and long limbs, claws aiming for their throat.

It barely made it a foot. Sakura lashed out, much like her temper did, and snapped its head off its body. She breathed heavily, her eyes wide. "What the fuck is that thing?"

"An alien?" Kakashi guessed, alarmed. He stretched his senses, taking notice of rapidly approaching enemies. "There's more of them heading this way."

"Fresh meat!" chanted the darker half as another hybrid made its appearance. It was rather peculiar that it appeared to be two different entities stitched into one, split in the middle.

"Mother will be pleased," the white half replied with a sharp grin.

Kakashi's skin crawled, his muscles stiffening as he prepared for a fight. Never had he ever encountered an opponent so strange— it travelled through the ground, bursting out at unexpected places and keeping everyone disoriented enough to kill them.

"Kakashi," Sakura said softly, the iciness of her tone strangely grounded him. "Watch your feet."

And then she shattered the earth.

 **...**

 **Third Shinobi War**

"Kakashi are you seriously still sulking?" Sakura huffed after half a day of silent travelling. It was maddening how long Kakashi could hold a silent treatment. "I'm fine. We all are. That's a win in my books."

Kakashi glanced her way, and then fleetingly at Sakumo before he responded, tone clipped, "You made me leave you behind. That about breaks ten different vows I've sworn."

"But Kakashi, I had it under control." Sakura sidled up to his side, a pout on her lips. "You know how it works ... nothing about my fighting style is precise or elegant; you could easily get hurt."

Kakashi's shoulders slumped a fraction before his eyes creased in a helpless, abashed smile. "Dad called it separation anxiety."

She gave a mock gasp. "How dare he hit the nail right on the head?"

In response, Kakashi's fingers gently ruffled her hair in an action he never quite outgrew before easily wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tugging her closer to his side. His nose briefly nuzzled her hair as he pressed an affectionate kiss to her temple. Sakura felt her cheeks burn at his display of affection, in front of his _father_ no less. "Never again okay?" he murmured quietly, to which she quickly nodded and stepped away from his side.

Why was this so embarrassing? Nothing about what he just did was out of character for them, Kakashi was strangely comfortable when it came to being affectionate with her in front of their friends. At first there was hesitance until the general public accepted them, but then Kakashi had grown much more comfortable with holding her hand or waist and occasionally giving her innocent kisses.

It had to be because Sakumo was watching them with gentle eyes.

Oh gods, Sakura's face burned. She cleared her throat, sure that Kakashi was internally laughing at her reaction, and trekked ahead. "Let's hurry up now ... I need to know if Sasuke and Naruto are okay."

The thought of them was like a strong dose of reality. It was immediately sobering. She'd already lost them once, in that cursed other reality she would soon be returning to. She'd cherish those precious days she was granted with them, especially Naruto, who was the closest thing to a brother she'd ever had.

The thought of him always caused fresh tears to spring to her eyes, frustrating and unstoppable. That wound was still too fresh. Konoha's shinobi forces had given up at his loss, fighting half heartedly, feeling hopeless and all but awaiting their turn to die.

Sakura would have been one of them had she not had Kakashi, who was her anchor and the only thing left that tied her to this earth. She wiped hastily at her eyes to clear the moisture out of them and kept walking. So far, Kakashi hadn't seen her break yet, and she didn't want him to witness her moment of weakness when he, himself, was struggling to hold on.

After all, she was vividly aware of how much more this trip was costing him. She might have lost Naruto and gotten a chance to see him again, but in this world, Kakashi had everyone he'd ever lost in his life from mentor to father to best friend—he was going to lose both his teams and his father again. The thought saddened her so much she almost forgot her own pains.

It made her slow down her steps, earlier embarrassment completely forgotten and replaced with an immense heaviness in her heart. She reached out and took Kakashi's hand in her own—she felt completely terrible now. He was so afraid of losing her, the only one he had left, and she found it silly, thinking he simply didn't trust her to fight her own battles.

Sakura reminded herself that Kakashi was the only one on her team who had never doubted her strength. She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry about earlier."

His eyes widened a fraction in surprise before they creased in a hidden smile. "Okay. Can we have eggplants for dinner tonight?"

Oh, she knew what he was doing. He always made matters sillier, redirecting serious discussions to something lighthearted to make her feel better. The thought warmed her more than she'd ever admit. "Now you're just taking advantage."

"Ninja." He mocked her lightly and squeezed her hand again.

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't quite hide her smile. She turned to look at Sakumo, who was watching them fondly. "Does eggplant sound okay? Kakashi tells me I make the best ones."

"Eggplants sound perfect, thank you, Sakura."

 **...**

It turned out that Naruto and Sasuke had returned a day before them. They were alive, although quite visibly battered, but even more surprised by the hugs they received from Sakura. She was never quite affectionate with either of them, but it wasn't a bad change.

They left the hospital in higher spirits after she took her leave with Kakashi and Sakumo-sensei, Naruto teasing Sasuke for the way he blushed after Sakura's impromptu embrace and Sasuke insisting he was being a dobe and imagining things.

Sakura wore a bittersweet smile all the way home, Kakashi and Sakumo wordlessly trailing her.

"Is she okay?" Sakumo whispered to Kakashi, eyes trained at the rosette who now had a slight slouch in her posture.

Kakashi gave a noncommittal grunt. "I don't think so."

"What is it?" Sakumo worriedly inquired, side-eyeing his son meaningfully, imploring him to elaborate.

Kakashi sighed, his shoulders slumping too, much to his father's chagrin. "There are no longer a Sasuke and Naruto where we come from, Dad."

Sakumo startled, and if it weren't for years of conditioning, he would've stopped walking. Despite that, his breath hitched in his throat.

Kakashi's eyes creased in a rueful smile that fell quickly to be replaced by a heaviness Sakumo was familiar with. "Our Sasuke was too consumed with darkness to be saved. We'd failed him, as a nation, much like they'd failed me. But he bolted, defected Konoha and ran off to be apprenticed by one of the most terrifying shinobi in our world. Sakura killed him herself."

Deafening silence descended on them. "Sakura … killed Sasuke?"

"Not by choice. Hokage's order. For a long time we were told to capture him and bring him before the higher court were we to cross roads. Eleven failed attempts later, the order became capture dead or alive." Kakashi's voice dropped in volume, mindful of the fact that Sakura could overhear them. He didn't want to bring back any more painful memories. "He made it impossible, that idiot." Kakashi shook his head sorrowfully. "I always saw myself in him you know? I'd resolved to kill him myself. Killing your teammate isn't a burden I ever wanted Sakura to carry … god knows the weight of that never eases."

Sakumo listened intently as his son recounted events from his tragic universe.

"But Sakura, ever since Tsunade took her on as her apprentice, had changed. She believed it should be her to put an end to Sasuke." Kakashi recalled how Sakura, with her hands dripping blood and tears streaming down her face, had told him she never wanted him to sully his hands with a teammate's blood ever again. And it was then and there that Kakashi's world titled off balance and his inevitable spiral into love with Sakura started.

"And Naruto," Kakashi continued softly, and this one hurt him more than he'd ever admit, burned in his heart like a personal failure, sat in his throat like lead. He forced the words out, "Naruto died protecting Sakura, just a few weeks ago."

Sakumo's silence was so loud it rang in his ears. And then, "I'm so sorry, Kakashi."

Too overcome with grief, Kakashi didn't respond, and together they kept walking. There were scars that never healed; Kakashi had a number of these, and sometimes words stopped consoling and instead became exhausting to listen to. He was glad his father understood.

Words after all, made it all the much harder not to fall apart. And in war, that would get you crushed.


	8. The Inevitable Fall (It Still Hurts)

**VIII - The Inevitable Fall (It Still Hurts)**

 **Fourth Shinobi War**

They sprinted ahead into the fray, Sakura's monstrous strength, as usual, proving to be a life-saving skill in times of peril.

"Sakura?!" cried an incredulous voice, which they both ignored. Sakura had taken to dismantling broken buildings and using their pieces as projectiles, Kakashi finishing her targets off with quick decisive slashes of his kunai across their throat.

And then they saw him, a man of legends, in all his former glory, wrecking havoc upon anyone within his path

Kakashi fell back as if he had gotten scalded, Sakura in tow. "Kakashi …" she said in alarm. "Is that …?"

"Bloody hell," Kakashi uttered under his breath, shell-shocked. "Madara freaking Uchiha."

Sakura swore as they watched him burn a squadron of ninja to a crisp without breaking a sweat. He cackled madly, like a demon that had descended straight from hell to destroy the entire world and everyone in it.

"What do we do?" she asked Kakashi, never taking her eyes off Madara. She was afraid that if she got distracted for just one second, he'd rip her apart from the sheer power of his presence.

"So much for staying as safe as possible," Kakashi lamented, his fingers coming together in rapid signs. "I'm going to try to strike him down with lightning release."

Seconds later, Kakashi was dashing towards Madara, Sakura gaping where she stood.

"Kakashi!" she screamed, horrified that he'd charge in head-first— that had always been _her_ style.

The skies darkened as Kakashi drew lightning to his palm, and then came a sudden, violent spray of cold water from above, putting out some of the fires raging in the distance.

Madara turned to face Kakashi, surprise written on his face. Kakashi's fist sank through his chest, wild sparks of electricity bursting from his elbow down. Kakashi jumped away as Madara sank to the ground, clutching at the gaping wound in his chest.

However, after a moment, Madara slowly rose, and goosebumps resurfaced on Sakura's skin as she watched him straighten and wipe a trickle of blood off his chin. "Ha. I couldn't sense you. How strange. I thought you were dead, Kakashi Hatake."

Sakura's spine contracted with fear but she sprinted up to Kakashi's side, ready to teleport them both away when Madara's attention shifted to her.

"Sakura Haruno," he smirked. Another, much colder chill ran down her body. "Didn't Obito kill you, Haruno? It sure seemed that way ... that Tsunade brat destroyed our battle ground in a bout of rage. Of course, she suffered thoroughly for that."

Sakura's blood froze over. Her shishou?

An iron rod materialised in Madara's hand. "Let's send you back to her—"

Sakura didn't wait for him to finish his threat; she'd already teleported Kakashi and herself as far away from Madara Uchiha as her chakra could bear. So far, in fact, that she found herself at the coast, where the signs of previous battles were littered all around. She heaved, her legs shaking. Looking around, she saw hundreds and _thousands_ of dead bodies lying pitifully on the ground.

Instinctively, she fell back against Kakashi, her eyes settling on the familiar face of Hiashi Hyuuga, elegant even in death.

She trembled as she took in all the corpses. Not a single soul alive, and then—

"Sa-Sa-kura?" wheezed an old, familiar voice laced with pain.

She spun around and let out a horrified scream as she fell on her posterior, the sight of Tsunade torn in half and impaled on a rock, jarring, terrifying, the very stuff of her nightmares.

"Oh my god!" Sakura cried, getting to her feet instantly and running to her mentor. "No no no, oh gods, oh gods please." Sakura started tearing up as she got closer to Tsunade, noticing that her henge was down, her once blond hair white and thin, her eyes shadowed and sunken. "I-I-I …" Sakura frantically searched for Tsunade's bottom half, spotting her foot peeking out from under a tree. "Please—please hang on—I'm going to fix you."

Using her monstrous strength, Sakura heaved the trunk up and tossed it aside, finding the bottom half of Tsunade's body semi-crushed. The tears escaped and rolled down her cheeks, "Kakashi," she choked, "help me drag them closer."

Kakashi was by her side in a second, and Sakura rushed back to her shishou's body, yanking out the kunai embedded in Tsunade's torso and arms and healing the wounds as she went. It was a miracle, unbelievable really, that Tsunade was still alive even when missing everything from the waist down.

Tsunade had never reeked so acutely of death and blood; it was sickening. Sakura trembled as she chipped away at the sharp rock in her shishou's side, gingerly freeing Tsunade and laying her on the ground next to her other half.

Sakura unleashed her strength of a hundred seal, the rush of power positively intoxicating as it healed her injuries and refreshed her dwindling reserves. Her hands glowed green, and she set about painstakingly reconnecting Tsunade's torso to her legs while Kakashi watched over her shoulder and surveyed the area for any more surprises.

Tsunade was beginning to regain colour under Sakura's diligent healing, so much in fact that her henge came back up and she was once again the familiar blonde woman who mentored her, not just the shell of the great woman she once was.

As soon as Tsunade was stable, Sakura's mind started whirling again. This was beyond— _way_ beyond—comprehension. There were too many factors, too many variables, too many _possibilities_ , and she was scared shitless of this nightmarish world and its demons.

Madara Uchiha … good gods, what hope did those people have? What hope did _she and_ _Kakashi_ have?

It was way beyond anything ever expected of them to be able to defeat a legend like Madara Uchiha. They'd probably die a thousand deaths trying … this didn't seem right at all; Sakura wasn't used to doubting herself so brutally, but she was so outlandishly outmatched the most apt analogy she could think of was betting a genin against the Hokage. The genin in that case didn't stand a single fucking chance.

Sakura was still hopelessly outmatched by her _sensei_ —she never for a second doubted that Sakumo could so easily flip the tables on her and end a fight. If she couldn't even beat him in a decent _spar_ , what were her chances _here_?

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she muttered, falling back on her haunches as she let Tsunade's regenerative abilities take over her healing. "Kakashi, I don't mean to sound gloomy, but you do realise we've got about, roughly speaking, zero percent chance of surviving this, right?"

"Gee, you're such a joy to have around, aren't you?" Kakashi muttered sarcastically before his tone hardened into something more serious. "I know that. Well, unless we stay here and spend the rest of our lives avoiding _him_ at all costs."

"Is that even an option?" Sakura wondered, thinking back to the terrifying sensation of having Madara's eyes on her, sizing her up. "After all the battles were fought and all the ninja killed, wouldn't he come for us? Because I'm not convinced anyone can beat him and that army of aliens."

Squinting, Kakashi looked around, once again taking in all the death and destruction. "What choice do we have?" he finally said. "Maybe something will happen before then and we'll get magically switched back. This is wrong ... we don't _belong_ here. Surely some natural law is being violated, and nature will have to re-right itself, right?"

"Or ... Something drastic and completely awful will happen instead. Maybe we'll just disappear like we never existed," Sakra muttered, looking down at the battered Tsunade, who was watching her like she just saw the sun for the first time.

"Or that," Kakashi sighed, hopelessness seeping into the sound. "This is depressing."

Sakura snorted humorlessly. "Yeah. Look around you; depression is everywhere." And then she went silent. "I wonder how it works though. Do these universes co-exist? As separate planes of existence? Or by us being here, does that mean our world ceased to exist and we're stuck here? Is our only way of going back tied to our alternate selves? I mean, I have to assume they popped up in our world right? Right? There can't be two of us running around in the same timeline ... that, like, breaks ten different natural laws."

Running an agitated hand through his hair, Kakashi huffed, "We can't be sure of anything … goddammit …"

Tsunade's ginger touch ghosting up Sakura's arm dragged Sakura's attention to her. "W-what … What are you talking about?"

Kakashi and Sakura shared a look, realising now that they needed to explain their predicament to Tsunade and hope she had the answer they were seeking.

"Oh, where do I even start?" Sakura groaned.

* * *

 ***Third Shinobi World***

For the next few days, Sakura all but camped out in the Hokage tower with one Shikaku Nara, and with each passing day a new heaviness took a hold of her frame and a new darkness shadowed her eyes.

Kakashi knew, logically, that she was as scared as him, that nothing about their circumstances was normal by any means, and that any decision they made would affect more than just him and her. But he wondered what she was thinking—after all, she brought them here. She had held onto him tight and ripped him away from the universe, quite literally.

Did she blame herself? Did she view this as a personal failure?

For three days, Kakashi stayed up all night watching her sleep; she was restless and plagued with nightmares, whimpering his name and Naruto's and Ino's, and constantly pleading forgiveness with a breathless intensity. And each day it hurt just a little bit more. By the fifth day, he didn't think he could take it anymore.

She'd told him that Shikaku had some potentially helpful classified information about a time-travel mission Minato had attempted and succeeded at before, the only time-travel mission recorded in history.

What Shikaku and Sakura were trying to figure out was the way Minato had switched back. They now knew that the chances of both universes co-existing was high, given that Minato was able to travel between the both of them. But that didn't mean that there was any hope of Sakura and Kakashi returning to their world; there were just too many unanswered questions.

"Sakura." Kakashi shook her shoulder and watched her eyelids flutter over glittering emerald, bleary and tear-soaked. "Hey."

"Mhm?" she startled and quickly wiped at her eyes, seemingly confused by the evidence of her distress. "What is it? Are you okay?"

In a heartbeat, she was sitting up and leaning over him, inspecting him for any new injuries. Would she ever stop worrying about him?

He sat up, causing her to lean back, but his fingers framed the nape of her neck before she could put too much distance between them and watched her eyes roam his face cautiously. " _I'm_ fine. Are _you_ okay?"

Immediately, her eyes flitted to the space over his shoulder, and she swallowed. "Uh? Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

Kakashi raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Then why won't you look me in the eyes?"

Reluctantly, she met his gaze again, beautifully defiant.

He sighed and pressed his forehead against hers, soaking up her warmth and closing his eyes. "I know you, Sakura. I know when something is wrong. You know that none of this is your fault, right?"

A quiet intake of breath and then a broken whisper: "How could it not be?"

"We were going to die," he told her, brutally honest as always. "I know it, you know it. That was the end of the line. And you bought us more time."

He peeked at her to find her eyes rapidly filling with tears. "I know." she croaked, pressing her nose against his cheek and muffling a quiet sob. "I'm sorry it wasn't enough."

His heart squeezed, very painfully, and thumped hard against his ribcage. "Sakura," he tried gently, "even if we had forever, it wouldn't have been enough. There will never be a day that I wake up and decide that we've had our fill. We're selfish creatures ... we'll always want more."

Sakura's face pressed against his neck, and he felt her tears spill onto his skin, her fingers digging in his flesh like the thought of this being all they got was too painful to take. "I know," she choked out and let a few shuddering breaths leave her before scooting closer to him, all but sitting in his lap and curling completely against his chest.

He wished he had his adult body then so he could wrap her up completely, so his frame would be large enough that her smaller one could fit in his arms.

He wished there was a way he could soothe her, or offer some answers that would make this right.

Kakashi had promised himself he would never try to shelter her again, but having her like this, frail and quaking in his arms reminded him of the desperation he felt to protect her. He wished he could make the world disappear. Even more he wished he could whisk her away to a place where he could love her forever and not have to worry about how much time they had left.

He pressed his mouth to her hair and mumbled soothing, sweet nothings until she fell back to sleep in his arms. He was left with the bitter taste of what-ifs and lost hopes.

* * *

"No, no, no," Minato shook his head as he reviewed the seal. "Sensei, it's too unstable. It'll kill them before they get there."

Jiraiya twirled the brush in his hand, looking pensive. "But if I remove the unstable component, there's a risk one of them will be left behind."

"Then alter the layering of the seal," Minato suggested. "I'm more worried about them travelling at the same time. So many things could go wrong ... bodily deformities or something crazy like body-switching. And what if the energy it takes to get them there causes a rip in the fabric of space and they get launched into _another_ universe?"

"All we have are what-ifs," Shikaku cut into the conversation. Minato and Jiraiya had been at it all morning, trading ideas, drawing and redrawing and rearranging seals over and over again and getting nowhere. "They're here now. That means something is possible."

"Yes, but …" Sakura spoke up from beside Shikaku, her eyes tracing the seal. "I had my adult body on the first trip. It had my chakra reserves of three years. And on the way here, I had to keep Kakashi alive every second of the way. The strain of it was almost too much. And it's—it's quite traumatic, the journey. He coded on me a few times. His heart tried to stop. I don't remember much besides that."

"Do you not remember the seal you used?" Jiraiya studied her with something akin to curiosity but not quite so obviously defined … like he might be cautious. He had been staring at her all morning, more intent on her than the seal, and she didn't understand why. Perhaps he viewed this—her being here—as a miracle.

Sakura dragged a palm down her face. "It's more complicated than just a seal. I remember the seals. But it's—different. Clearly something went wrong; I mean, I ended up in a different timeline instead of the past. It needs to be rewired accordingly, except I have no idea how to tell it to take us back home instead of a different universe happening in the future. I think I need something that ties back to the world we came from."

"So what do we do? What's something that's continued to exist exactly the same regardless of time? That you have here?" Shikaku demanded.

Sakura understood how frustrating this was for him; after all, they were at war, and she and Kakashi were taking up time and resources that couldn't be spared. The guilt gnawed at her again—she did _this_. This was all her fault, why did she ever attempt—

"My ninken." Kakashi interrupted that trainwreck of thoughts before she spiralled down a dark tunnel. She turned to stare at him with wide eyes as he elaborated. "The summoning scroll still has Sakura's signature even now. That means it's not affected by time and space."

Three people spoke at once.

Jiraiya: "Sakura can summon your ninken?"

Shikaku: "Summoning scrolls are unaffected by time and space?"

Minato: "That's genius! That might just work!"

What followed was a bit of organised chaos, rearranging the room for Sakura to do the summoning, Jiraiya and Minato trading theories rapid-fire in the background, Shikaku listening pensively.

As Sakura prepared to summon Pakkun, she thought about how embarrassing it'd be to cry if she failed—and how much more embarrassing it'd be if she cried either way.

But clearly some things were still right in the universe, because Pakkun materialized in a poof of smoke, their Pakkun, with his missing ear and scarred eye. Sakura nearly collapsed from the sheer relief of seeing him alive.

Pakkun blinked at her and then at Kakashi, clearly younger, clearly different. "You two better start making sense soon," he drawled, unimpressed. The scar gave a severity to his face that made him a little terrifying.

That was definitely their Pakkun.

"Hello to you too. We might've time-travelled or dimension-hopped or whatever," Kakashi said, cutting straight to the point. "And we're here to figure out a way back."

Pakkun gave him a flat look. "If this is your idea of a prank to cheer me up, I _will_ bite you."

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Kakashi motioned to his slighter and younger-looking body. "We're stuck in an alternate reality. But it seems the summoning world and contracts are unaffected by the switch."

"Which begs the question of whether your alternate selves could summon this Pakkun too," Shikaku said, eyes glinting again with mental calculations he was probably making too fast for any of them to follow. "Or better, if Pakkun could reverse-summon himself in their world."

"Uh, sorry to disappoint you, old man, but even I can't dimension-hop at will," Pakkun sniffed. "Kakashi needs to figure out a way to summon me. The other Kakashi. There's another Kakashi? Lord help us …"

Jiraiya sniggered. "He's sure a ray of sunshine, that one, isn't he?"

"I will throttle you all," Shikaku began with exasperation, "if you don't focus."

"Yessir," Jiraiya sniggered again.

"Is there no way you can get Kakashi to summon you?" Shikaku turned his attention back to Pakkun. "Isn't the link between summons a two-way street?"

"I could _try_ , but you've literally just told me he's in a different universe altogether—how could I distinguish between this Kakashi and that one?" Pakkun asked, trotting to Kakashi's side to sniff at his foot. "You smell different … too many hormones. Blegh, puberty, you're doing that again?"

"Not by choice," Kakashi glared at him.

"So is the other Kakashi in your adult body?" Pakkun sniffed at him again. "You _seriously_ reek of teenager."

Kakashi sent the ceiling a long-suffering look while Jiraiya continued to quietly lose it in the background. "Yes, we have to assume so. Can you please stop now?"

Pakkun gave a huff but backed off. "And you, pinkie. You smell a little sick."

"Just chakra drain," she assured when four sets of alarmed gazes settled on her. "I'm fine."

"So what's the plan, except trying to make contact with the other Kakashi?" Pakkun jumped onto Sakura's lap and settled there, blatantly uncaring.

Sakura scratched behind his healthy ear. "We were wondering if we could use you as an anchor to travel back to our universe since you remain unaffected by the laws of physics and time."

Pakkun gave her a skeptical look, "Assuming this doesn't kill all of us, can you even time-travel in your condition?"

"He has a point," Kakashi pointed out.

"We don't have many choices here. I have to fix this, I need to—" Sakura began defensively, but Kakashi cut her off before she could spiral.

"Not at the cost of your life," he hissed at her, his expression a mixture of fear and conviction. "Would you stop trying to quit on me?"

"I'm not _quitting_ ... I'm trying to help!" Sakura threw her hands in the air.

"Well, you're not!" Kakashi snapped.

They glared at each other, both of them breathing faster, caught up in their own feelings of despair and hurt.

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

"Alright kids," Jiraiya sighed. "Let's take a breath. There's a much simpler solution than Sakura-chan burning herself out."

Kakashi turned his undivided attention on him. "What?"

Jiraiya spread his arms like a showman. "We get Tsunade to power the seal."

"Hah," Shikaku laughed incredulously. "Good luck bringing her back here."

"I never said _I_ would be the one bringing her back," Jiraiya said dismissively.

"Who else even stands a chance of being heard by Tsunade?" Shikaku was developing permanent frown marks at this rate.

Minato made a thoughtful sound, reminding the room of his presence. "Sakumo-san, perhaps."

Jiraiya looked like he had bitten into a sour lemon. "I was thinking the same," he admitted begrudgingly.

The room seemed to collectively fall into agreement, much to Sakura and Kakashi's bafflement.

"My dad?" Kakashi tilted his head. "Why him?"

The adults in the room glanced at each other before Jiraiya opened his mouth, and with all the tact of a bull in a china shop, blurted. "Everyone pretty much knows they had a thing going. Not that they ever came out with it."

" _What_." Kakashi and Sakura demanded at once, sharing a bewildered look, then stared at the other occupants of the room.

"Sensei," Minato face-palmed with a whine. "Ever hear of tact?"

"Don't sass me punk," Jiraiya chimed gleefully. "Anyway, clearly Tsunade-hime has zero taste, but we'll get to that later."

"No, I'm sorry, I'm still at the part where my father has a thing with the _Tsunade Senju_." Kakashi was shaking his head, clearly in disbelief. "Where is she then?"

"Yeah about that … she kinda dumped him." As soon as the words were out of Jiraiya's mouth, Minato winced. "She was hell-bent on leaving, and he refused to leave with her."

Kakashi had resorted to staring at the ceiling with the crumbling patience of a man about to snap. "Okay. So wouldn't that make him the least ideal candidate for the job?"

"Not if he could convince her he was wrong," Minato offered.

"You want to convince my dad to go beg his—ex-lover? Girlfriend? Whatever?—to come back home because he was wrong?" Kakashi was growing more and more skeptical.

"I think it'd be more ideal to send you, Sakura, and Sakumo to explain your predicament. Surely she'd hear you out," Shikaku cut in before they lost Kakashi entirely.

"You clearly don't know her," Jiraiya pointed out.

"There's no way shishou would turn us away!" Sakura exclaimed, offended. "I'll talk to her."

"Sakura-chan, you threw the biggest tantrum ever in all of history when she left," Jiraiya revealed, but it didn't seem to deter Sakura. "If she suspects you're there to try to bring her back, she might hightail it out of whatever hole she's in right away."

Sakura crossed her arms, "We'll see about that."

Kakashi shifted, bringing the attention back to him. "Anyway, until then, perhaps Pakkun and I could spend some time seeing if we can establish a link between me and the other Kakashi."

Pakkun shrugged and jumped off Sakura's lap to settle on his master's again. "Sure. You know, your Sakura smelled different too."

"I know," Kakashi resumed scratching Pakkun's ear but didn't elaborate.

Sakura took an experimental whiff. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Kakashi raised a challenging eyebrow at her. "You really want me to answer that right here?" He looked pointedly at their company, who were watching them with various degrees of curiosity.

"... maybe not," Sakura said, a little sulkily, as she leaned back in her seat.

Shikaku cleared his throat. "I'll call Sakumo in for a meeting, but I think it's best we carry on this discussion tomorrow. I have _another_ meeting to get to."

"The council?" Minato guessed, voice sympathetic.

Judging by Shikaku's faint wince, he'd hit the nail right on the head. "Those old bats will give me white hairs before I'm thirty."

Their party slowly dispersed, Jiraiya proclaiming to Minato that, by the way, he was "over Tsunade-hime," and Shikaku threatening bodily-harm if he didn't shut up. In the wake of their departure, the room was eerily quiet.

Kakashi and Sakura stared at each other, Pakkun like a shield between them. "I _smell_ different?"

Kakashi sighed, "Not in a bad way, Sakura, just different. More mellow. Less … feminine. Okay, that's not the right word. But you get what I mean?"

Judging by the tic in her brow, she didn't. "No, I don't."

"He means you smell like hormones too," Pakkun sniggered. "Puberty. Very charming."

"Okay, that's just gross." Sakura made a face at Pakkun. "Stop sniffing me."

Kakashi's hand on his back made Pakkun look at him. Kakashi had an unreadable look in his eyes, a tenseness in his shoulder. "Will you tell me about everyone now?"

That immediately dampened Pakkun's mood. "I guess … we're fine … coping. Uhei will never walk again. You know I can't see with this baby anymore. Bull's … Bull. Stubborn bastard, should just retire already and raise his pups. Akino, Bisuke, Shiba, they're rough around the edges after … but we're coping. This is the life we chose; we have to live with it."

So that meant Urushi and Guruko didn't make it. Sakura's heart twisted, especially as she watched Kakashi's back bow and his face touch Pakkun's head.

"Dammit," he murmured, his voice wet with unshed tears.

Sakura was on her feet and by his side before she realised she'd even moved. She wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders and buried her face in his hair, unable to blink her tears away. "Shh," she said brokenly and tightened her grip on him.

Pakkun's paw touched her arm in solidarity.

No one offered words of comfort. Sakura ached to say they would be fine, except she knew very well that they might be next.

She held tightly onto Kakashi and prayed to any god that was listening to grant her the small mercy of going first, so she'd never have to live in a world without him.

Selfish as that might be, she couldn't get herself to feel guilty.

* * *

 **So. I just realised it took an entire year to update this. I'm SO sorry I'm absolutely terrible but it's here now, it's been ready for a while, I just needed to find the right time to post it, I hope you enjoyed! Reviews are much appreciated~**


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